#foreign object

Dude getting strangled and punished good with a thick yellow rope or maybe a bicycle chain lock. You agreed to the match and now you’re gonna get hurt bad, punk. Oops there goes your ability to breathe, bitch

I've been thinking about the history of the term International Object, the handle I've used for over fifteen years. It's both dumber and deeper than you'd think, which makes it a nice way of looking at wrestling's place in culture.

Please enjoy this thread 🤼

So, we all know what a foreign object is. @themountaingoats.bsky.social wrote the best song about them. You know how it goes.

A foreign object is any violent weapon a wrestler uses to cheat. It's "foreign" because it doesn't belong in the situation of a regulated, real wrestling match. It literally doesn't belong. And yet, there it is, during just about every wrestling show that's ever happened.

Foreign objects, outside interference, and all sorts of rule-breaking and nasty business is an integral part of the fun of watching pro wrestling. Cheating is as baked into the show as ad breaks.

But something interested happened in the late 80s: Ted Turner banned it on his networks. You would get fined for saying the word "foreign."

Ted Turner was a globalist, I'd say. He wanted the world more connected, more informed, and more peaceful. As billionaires go, he did a lot of work to try to make these things happen.

(no such thing as a good billionaire, and plenty of people have written better criticisms of Ted than I have time for here)

News anchors would be encouraged to use "international" instead of "foreign" when describing events or people around the world. At the time, this was considered more politically correct. Today, we might say the language is more inclusive.

Here's a discussion on r/librarians about the topic of "foreign" vs "international" https://www.reddit.com/r/librarians/comments/n4qfkq/cataloging_international_filmwe_need_to_make_a/

I'd argue the term is successful in context. Foreign suggests something doesn't belong. International is suggestive of air travel. Foreign is othering. International is all of us.

But not all of Ted Turner's companies used the term in the context they meant. World Championship Wrestling used "foreign" as in an object that didn't belong, usually weapons like steel chairs and brass knuckles.

Of course, the ban was on the term, not the objects.

Foreign objects don't belong in a "real" wrestling match, but they absolutely belong in the performed art of pro wrestling.

A wrestling show cannot exist without illegal weapons would be pretty dull.

Mick Foley suggests the same in regards to outside interference in his memoir, Have a Nice Day. I think the same applies to international objects.

 But WCW complied literally, and banned the term "foreign" from its broadcast.

Audibly, there is something clunky about "international object". Even divorced from all context, it sounds a bit strange, like the name of a holding company you shouldn't trust.

Foreign Object, ironically, sounds great. Rolls off the tongue. It's one reason why the Mountain Goats song is so cathartic.

So, from sometime in the late 80s, you'd sometimes hear the commentators say "international object" and your ears would sometimes twitch. That's not right, you'd think.

It didn't happen often. You'd only hear a commentator say "foreign object" if they wanted to obfuscate and sow doubt about what the viewer is looking at.

Here's Jim Ross using the phrase to describe a hidden weapon in Woman's glove at Capital Combat 1990.

Here's Jim Ross at Clash of the Champions XII saying foreign object, but quickly correcting himself. I wonder if they fined him for that.

My favourite example is from Wrestlewar 91. Butch Reed catches a pair of brass knuckles from Teddy Long and accidentally nails his partner, Ron Simmons. Ross says "Reed has an international object *as they say*."

If people can remember other times they've heard it, I'd love to add to this list

The term would become a bit of a joke. Obviously, Ted Turner didn't mean for this to happen, and it almost sounds like an act of malicious compliance from the commentators.

Wrestlers would make fun of it. Mick Foley makes one swipe at International Object in his memoir.

As for how seriously it was taken at CNN, I don't know. Apparently the fine for saying "foreign" was $100, which doesn't not seem like that much money.

But as a generally progressive person, I understand where Turner was coming from. 

In the memo, paraphrased here, Turner just lays it out plainly: (alt text): Why? "The word foreign implies something unfamiliar and creates a perception of misunderstanding," writes Mr. Turner, backing his stricture to employees with the threat of a fine payable to Unicef. "In contrast, international means 'among nations' and promotes a sense of unity." Excepted from the diktat: "cases in which the word foreign is part of the proper title [ sic ] of a person or thing," as in Best Foreign Language Film.

Still, there's no question that generally, the feeling is that this is a gaff by WCW.

Most redditors agree it was taken out of context and misused.

In popular culture, wrestling itself can feel like a foreign object, something odd that doesn't belong that breaks the social rules. WCW, much like the WWF, tried to normalize wrestling alongside basketball, MTV, and general pop culture.

Wrestling is also just a part of social media, whether you want it there or not, it seems. There's a famous tweet from a decade ago that goes "Welcome to Twitter. Here is your copy of the Communist Manifesto and a season pass to Monday Night RAW for some reason"

I think this worked, at least for a time. There have been pockets of time where it's been more acceptable to talk about wrestling in polite company. Language changes may have helped with that.

WCW didn't just use the term "international" to talk about illegal weapons. There was another area in pro wrestling where the word foreign would be used: wrestlers that came from outside the United States.

It is a common trope in wrestling to portray the foreign performer as a villain. Foreign wrestling gimmicks were stereotypical and often culturally insensitive.

For some examples: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-sports/5-pretty-racist-storyline-moments-still-on-the-wwe-network-48721/

During the time period where "foreign" had to be replaced with "international", there was also a shift in how these performers were portrayed. WCW's partnership with NJPW was a friendly one, and both sides made efforts to showcase their performers with respect.

See how Dusty Rhodes talks about Tatsumi Fujinami at SuperBrawl 1991: "Our country gets a chance tonight to see in my mind one of the greatest wrestlers internationally in the world."

This even extends to referee introductions. Jim Ross here says "Tiger Hattori, a great international official, will be the official of record."

You can always argue that "international object" was incorrect usage of Ted Turner's "foreign" ban, but using "international" to refer to performers from outside the US *was* the correct context, and it *does* help the presentation feel more inclusive.

For years, you'd hear introductions like "We are looking at an absolute international star who has dominated the rings of Tokyo and Mexico City" when luchadors or joshis would arrive in WCW. Positive connotations of worldwide success.

The "international" label on these performers was often introduced as a positive, that WCW viewers were lucky to get to see this, and that a lot of work went into making this appearance happen. And that was true.

WCW used the term "international" in a third context I want to highlight: The WCW International World Title. Does this look familiar?

The big gold belt has gone by a number of names in wrestling history.

When Ric Flair left WCW in 1991, he took the Big Gold Belt with him to WWF. For a time, WCW had no world champion, or championship because of this.

Obviously, that didn't last very long. WCW designed a new championship and crowned a new champion: Lex Lugar, who was in great shape.

At some point in late 1991, Flair did sent the Big Gold Belt back to WCW. But they didn't use it again for nearly two years. At this time, the WCW title did have a feeling of being a paper championship.

From the wiki: "With its return to WCW, the Big Gold Belt represented the NWA World Heavyweight Championship once again, being awarded to Masahiro Chono after his August 1992 tournament final victory over Rick Rude for the vacant title in New Japan Pro-Wrestling."

I do not have time to go over how complicated the NWA World Title is, but it's also a fun wikipedia rabbit hole.

So WCW is running the Big Gold Belt as the NWA Championship for the next year. It goes from Chono to the Great Muta, to Barry Windham, and back to Ric Flair at Beach Blast 93. And then it's vacated. WCW and the NWA stop working together.

But WCW owns the physical Big Gold Belt, and they want to keep using it. Many such cases.

In the autumn of 1993 they revived it in a new context: as the WCW International World Championship. As usual, its first champion is Ric Flair.

Rick Rude defeats Flair for it, and then helps define the title and how it's different from the WCW title. I love the clarity here. It's a wonderful successor to Flair's "real world champion" monologues when he came to the WWF.

I love that the Big Gold Belt is defined as the "real" world's title on both WWF and WCW tv in this time period, a belt set apart from either companies' preferred champions. This created an aura for it that remains today.

This dissolution of the NWA title from WCW, and the creation of the WCW International Title, would lead to the NWA trying to crown a new champion, which led to the creation of ECW. Just in case you didn't think this was historical enough.

WCW didn't just make up a new title, they also made up a whole new entity: WCW International, a fully made up governing body consisting of no one. This is pro wrestling. You can totally just do that.

The WCW International Title is hotly contested. Across 13 title matches, there are 5 successful defenses, all made by Rick Rude. Nobody else could keep it longer than one defense.  

Importantly, and perhaps obviously, the WCW International title is also contested *internationally*. Hiroshi Hase even holds it for a minute.

You'll notice the ratings for every match is very high. Banger after banger, if you will.

The WCW International Title is one of many championships built for the purpose of extending out the universe of any one particular wrestling promotion. Here's a few of my favourites:

The WWF European title, initially held by the British Bulldog, was meant to be a title for European tours. It quickly became just another midcard title until being merged into the Intercontinental Title, which was then merged into, of all things, the Big Gold Belt.

The Stardom SWA Title. I really liked the idea of this one, that it's baked into the title that the opponent *must* be from another country. The pandemic made this a difficult one to keep going, and it's since been retired.

The IWGP US Title: built in theory for NJPW's US expansion that sure seemed like a good idea at the time in 2018, this title was eventually merged into the current Global title, which isn't as good as the two titles that merged to make it happen.

The AEW All Atlantic/International Title. Current champ Konosuke Takeshita, who concurrently works for three companies, is perhaps the poster boy for this kind of travelling championship. Could be defended more often in Japan, if you ask me.

Historically, though, the WCW International Title is my favourite. If you ask me, the real world's championship is the real International Object.

I bet it also feels great to use it like one.

When the time came to merge the two WCW titles, WCW decided to keep the Big Gold Belt as the design, because of course that's what you do. It took nearly 3 years, but WCW had finally put the real world championship back together.

The end of the WCW International title is also the end of an era for the company: one without Hulk Hogan in it. You might say they went through a period of regression.

If you watch any WWE documentaries that mention WCW at this time, they're pretty negative about it. But I find it to be a fascinating time. So much happens in only a few years. So much change. And some of that change is in the language used.

Much of this comes out of Ted Turner's idea that "foreign" is problematic and "international" is better. And for this point, I have to say I agree.