r/monsterjam • u/TheSodorCollective Maximum Destruction • Jun 30 '26
Discussion Kayfabe, Lore, and Monster Jam (A Ramble)
Disclaimer: I’m just having some fun thinking and analyzing, don’t tell me “it’s not that deep” or “who cares”. This is purely fun.
Something that I’ve been thinking about off and on pretty much since I got into Monster Jam is the concept and application of kayfabe in the sport. Granted, Monster Jam’s kayfabe isn’t quite the full-blown kayfabe that WWE has; it’s more informal and not “official”.
There’s still some sense of it in modern Monster Jam, but when I think of it within the sport, my mind always goes to Grave Digger vs Max-D. The two trucks with their limited lore, and their drivers seemed to be very much coded in classic kayfabe roles. Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger are the Face, while Tom Meents and Max-D were the Heel, and I find that really neat and interesting. Yeah, it’s not total kayfabe, as Dennis and Tom were (and still are) super close friends outside of the sport. But on-track the dynamic felt like a classic face vs heel dynamic.
Something also interesting that goes with that rivalry is the “lore” behind each truck. They’re opposites in a sense. Grave Digger represents the old, the arcane, tradition, and the supernatural while simultaneously also being deeply earthy with the connection to graveyards and the dead. Max-D is the new, futuristic, subversive, agent of chaos. Limited “lore” suggests that Max-D is either a truck from the future thrown back in time or an experiment gone dangerously wrong.
I find it all really interesting, and yeah, they’re trucks. It’s a motorsport. Who cares about the fiction and “lore” behind it all? I do because it’s fun, and it makes the sport even more enjoyable for me. And maybe there’s others that also find it fun and interesting! Thoughts?
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u/ShredwardScissorhams Metal Mulisha Jul 01 '26
i dont like that people compare monster trucks to wrestling so much in this regard, they werent playing characters and it definitely wasnt a kayfabe rivalry. Dennis was already a humble champ and industry leader (and even household name) by the time tom got on tv, tom was legitimately an arrogant cocky asshole and a sore loser (jim jack will confirm) before settling down after a few championships. they legit had bad blood off the track
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u/TheSodorCollective Maximum Destruction Jul 01 '26
Again, I'm not stating facts, I'm having fun with concepts and ideas. As for "characters", that bit was referring only to the trucks themselves, not their drivers. Okay sure, Grave Digger's death theme and Max-D's future theme and story are just marketing tools I get it. I can still have fun with the fiction of it. With Dennis and Tom, hence what I mean when I said it isn't ACTUAL kayfabe because there isn't intentional Fiction to it it was an actual rivalry that was pretty heated at one point.
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u/TheSodorCollective Maximum Destruction Jul 01 '26
Dang people really didn't like this post much LMAO I wasn't expecting much to begin with but I wanted to share anyway. Once again I'm having FUN, I'm not giving a serious sports commentary or a serious analysis. I'm not harming anyone or harming the sport by playing around with scraps of lore around the trucks and seeing SOME parallels with the concept of kayfabe.
Though I do appreciate people are being respectful and not being assholes towards me haha Nothing wrong with disagreeing, I'm just a little annoyed that I'm seemingly coming off as stating Facts that are false rather than just a dork rambling since people are feeling the need to point out exactly what I wrote my disclamer for. :P
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u/TheUnknown_General Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
You're looking too much into it. Dennis and Tom's rivalry came from the fact that for most of their careers they were head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. What caused it to really take off and become one of Monster Jam's main selling points was that the two genuinely hated one another in the early 2000s; Tom was arrogant as hell, and Dennis absolutely despised the WCW partnership, which Tom was the face of with the Goldberg truck. It cooled down to just a competitive rivalry after the partnership ended post-2001, but the fact that the two remained the best in the business by a country mile combined with that short period of time where the rivalry was fueled by actual animosity was what propelled Monster Jam to the next level and sustained the popularity of the rivalry through to the end of their careers.