Wrestling with Sci Fi

We all know that professional wrestling is fiction, but is it science fiction?

Apparently, that's the thinking at NBC Universal, which is adding Extreme Championship Wrestling to the Sci Fi Channel's summer lineup on Tuesday, June 13. Really.

ECW is owned by World Wrestling Entertainment, and NBC Universal is back in business with the WWE on another of its cable channels, USA. Apparently, this is just furthering that partnership.

Longtime Sci Fi president Bonnie Hammer, who is now also president of USA, issued this statement: "Research tells us that there's a healthy appetite for wrestling among Sci Fi viewers."

Experience tells me that this will make Hammer an even bigger lightning rod for sci-fi geeks. (I say that with empathy, being more than a bit of a sci-fi geek myself.)

The sci-fi fans are a tough crowd. And they've been ticked off at Hammer before, both for things that were her fault (like not giving the "Babylon 5" spinoff series "The Legend of the Rangers" a chance) and things that weren't her fault (like not being able to afford to pick up the canceled "Star Trek: Enterprise").

And I've wondered at times myself what the heck was going on at Sci Fi. Like the years in which a channel devoted to science fiction had not one series set in outer space, yet had room for junk like the "reality" show "Scare Tactics."

But I'll be the first to give Hammer and Sci Fi a standing ovation for "Battlestar Galactica," a series that's not only the best sci-fi show on TV, but one of the best shows, period.

Making the geeks happy certainly isn't an easy task, in part because it's hardly a united audience. You've got the Trekkies, but also those who despise "Star Trek." For that matter, you've got the nerds who love "Star Gate: SG1" but can't abide "Star Gate Atlantis."

But you're going to tick off a whole lot of them when you put professional wrestling on a channel that's supposedly devoted to science fiction. The natural fear being that the channel is no longer going to be devoted to science fiction.

And these are not people you want to mess with.

I'm going to be hearing from them myself, no doubt.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com