Five rings to rule them all

Brian Duffy wins points today simply for not doing a cartoon of a stranded cruise ship labeled "Congress," which is sort of like winning a tournament because none of the other teams showed up. 

But aside from not climbing onto that tiresome and utterly foreseeable bandwagon, and even among cartoonists who have addressed the Olympic committee's decision to drop wrestling, Duffy's done a fine job.

Wrestling is one of the pillars of Olympic sport, going back to the ancient Greeks who inspired the modern event. The IOC has knocked down that pillar. 

There is no requirement to overthink, or overdraw. Sometimes the most creative thing you can do is get out of the way of a simple point.

Obviously, the connection between the Olympics-brand trademarked TV extravaganza and the games of the ancient Greeks has grown more tenuous over the years, and this seemingly inexplicable move only makes things clear. 

It's shocking, but mostly because it makes no sense.

That is, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the Olympics are only marginally a sporting event and that the Olympic committee is a commercially-driven corporate bully.

Within the media, or at least within advertising and marketing circles, it's generally well-known that the commercial entities with the most aggressive, pitbull trademark attorneys are Disney, Dr. Seuss and USOC.

When you get a nastygram from one of those, you can bet it's not a formality. They are serious, and USOC no less than the others: You can't use the rings, the term "rings" in that context and certainly not the word "Olympic."

Since the term "Olympic" is clearly within the public domain, Congress has passed a law specifically letting the USOC hold a trademark on it. In fact, back when they were preparing to hold the 1976 Winter Games in Denver, they forced a Greek immigrant to change the name of his existing restaurant, because it contained a reference to the forbidden mountain.

Yeah. "Wow."

At least Disney -- litigious bastards though they are -- doesn't coerce Chinese restaurants into offering "Peking Waterfowl" on their menus.

The Denver games didn't happen then because the people of Colorado voted against falling into debt and, as the bumperstickers said, "Californicating Colorado." Which eventually happened anyway, but it was a nice moment, and I never heard of anyone getting sued for sporting a "Boycott the Olympics" sticker on their bumper.

I have no desire to go back to the elitist Avery Brundage days, though they did inspire some good movies, like "Chariots of Fire" about Brundage's anti-Semitism, or the Emmy-winning TV biopic, "The Jesse Owens Story," about Brundage's hopes of not offending Hitler with too many non-Aryan winners, or "Jim Thorpe, All-American" about ... well, you get the picture. It's not exactly an uplifting history.

But the decision to drop wrestling is puzzling, and not just to Hawkeyes like Duffy, who hails from the home state of wrestling legend Dan Gable, whose website includes a link to an Op-Ed on the demise of Olympic wrestling by another former grappler, author John Irving.

Irving's premise in that piece is that the move by the IOC was a combination of politics, as so many Olympic decisions are, and the wrestling establishment's assumption that the sport was not on the chopping block. As such, it could be overturned, and it's hard to imagine that the decision will stand.

To start with, wrestling is a perfect sport for television, and for Olympic organizers as well: You need three or four cameras at most, a large rubber mat, a stopwatch and a whistle. It's got to be the least expensive Olympic sport to equip and the easiest to broadcast.

And there is enough hierarchy in the standings that you can find a few predictable stars with charming little stories you can turn into the mini-soap operas that have become an Olympic standard.

The decision makes no sense except within the context that the Olympics are less and less a sporting event each time they roll around, and today are more like "The Amazing Race" than the World Cup or the Super Bowl.

The football part of the Super Bowl, that is. They're a lot like the Beyonce part of the Super Bowl, and endless pregame part, and the commercials part.  

Within that context, maybe it's a mercy killing.

Comments

[Sherwood Harrington]

... it's generally well-known that the commercial entities with the most aggressive, pitbull trademark attorneys are Disney, Dr. Seuss and USOC.

You're going to be hearing from Coca-Cola any minute now.

[Brian Fies]

This decision doesn't make sense to me on its own terms. Even if you argue that Wrestling is bad business and bad TV (I don't but let's concede the point), the Olympics are packed with other events with little commercial support that are never televised. I have a passing interest in Archery and have never seen it on the tube. Likewise kayak, taekwondo, fencing, handball.... Some get shown on cable channels after midnight, but the real breakthrough has been the Internet that shows everything (and often without bad commentary). So why cut wrestling? Colleges still have wrestling teams, high schooler still grapple, it's not a dead sport. As you say, all you need is a room, a mat and a whistle.

I don't get it.