Pro-Wrestling Thread

[FiveMileSmile]

I'm making this so me and BDC don't end up derailing the suggestions thread in The List.

I like Pro-wrestling. Yes, I know its fake, and its all about sweaty men pretending to hit each other blah blah blah. If you want to mock in this thread, go ahead...

...but let me just warn you here. Lets remember who has the power to alter who's posts.

Am I clear? Good.

On with the discussion.

[Magill]

When I first saw this, I was wondering where the anti-wrestling thread was.

[FiveMileSmile]

See, now good jokes get tolerated

As you so correctly surmised, BDC, my preference for the world of pro-wrestling is the short-lived but truly wonderful Extreme Championship Wrestling. 90% of my wrestling videos are ECW related, and I've got pretty much all the stuff they released prior to the WWE buyout.

It's great to watch ECW and see talented guys like Little Guido, Yoshahiro Tajiri, Lance Storm, Jerry Lynn and RVD, not to mention a whole potful of others, actually allowed not only to have exciting and interesting matches, but being given time to allow themselves to prove their worth to the fans, rather than some higher corporate power deciding who they would try and make popular each week.

I still watch WWE programming (RAW mainly), and I watch the PPV's because, over here in the good old UK, they're actually shown for free rather than on a Pay Per View basis. But unless something very radical happens to the WWE, they'll never reach the storytelling and match performance heights of 1996-2001 ECW.

- Rich

[PoolMan]

Did you just refer to the "storytelling heights" of pro wrestling? I dunno, I thought Days of Our Lives had them beat!

[Robert]

I used to watch wresting when I was bout 11-13 and it was phun for a while. I used to be the little geek in school who made the Socko in design and tech class. But I got real dissenchanted with it when I found out it wasn't real.

[PoolMan]

That sounds like me, Robert. Into it for a while as a preteen, then dropped it when it turned out to be a soap opera for middle-aged rednecks.

Oops.

[Head Mutant]

If only they could make a graphic novel of the WWE!

If only...

[FiveMileSmile]

I just spent over an hour writing a defence of one form of media entertainment from tragic misconceptions in public perception brought about because its easier to trivialise that which we don't understand or appreciate rather than admit, despite it being not to our particular taste, that it may have some merit, artistic or otherwise, to the numerous fans of that particular medium.

Do you want me to bring it on Pro Wrestling as well? I've got a near 150 IQ and a degree in Journalism...do you really want me to bring it?

Hmmm?

- Rich

[PoolMan]

Careful! He's flashing his IQ!

If you want to defend wrestling, go ahead. Nobody's going to stop you. But what you have to acknowledge is that I admit to having watched wrestling in the past, and then gave it up. It's a matter of preference. It's not something whose artistic merits I haven't weighed against my own standards.

[Head Mutant]

Can you bring it? I mean, not that fake type of "particle board chairs masquerading as real metal chairs, bashing over the heads of your foes" bringing it. And remember, any defenses mounted will be compared with Celebrity Deathmatch, just a warning.

[Uber]

Well I'm siding with Sir Rich of the Octagonal Table on this one. For me, wrestling has been a cyclic thing. I'd get into watching it for a few years, then out, then back in again. It all started back in the days of Hulk Hogan vs Andre the Giant. Yes, it's not a real sport in that the outcome is predetermined, but the wrestlers are still in much better physical shape than I ever will be, so I don't see myself calling them fake any time soon. I've had the good fortune of being friends with a few pro wrestlers, so I have heard the stories of the training and pain that these folks go through. It's entertainment, soap opera for guys.

And Rich, I agree wholeheartedly. ECW was well before it's time, and was a pioneer of the attitude style. Before their talent pool was raided by WCW and WWF, they were the most innovative group in town. I still mark my time of going to the ECW Arena in the dying days as a great live show experience. That, plus seeing Wrestlemania from the Houston Astrodome were well worth the money, and things I'm glad I did.

So you go on watching the wrestling, Rich. And if you want a recommendation, go get the Ric Flair 3-DVD set. It is an awesome profile of one of the all-time greats.

[Al]

Also a pro-wrestling fan, though Stone Cold Steve Austin really signalled the end of my true interest. I keep an ear to the ground in case someone interesting actually pops his head up, but mostly the McMahon juggernaut seems to squash or squander what talent they have on bad angles or serve it to appease inflamed egos.

The mid-eighties/early-nineties were my favorite times: fun gimmicks (though there were some truly bad ones), classic matches (flair-steamboat anybody?) a general attitude that was still semiserious towards the whole thing, plus the vocal and managerial stylings of Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan.

Good times. No middle fingers, no bear drinking, no castrations, no crouch chops, no stinkfaces, no corpse-raping. I mean, I'm sure it was colored by my age, but it all just seemed so much more... I dunno. It just seemed less pandering, I guess, but that's probably not the right word either. Something about it had changed, and not for the better. When I look at it now, they just seem so desperate to get you to believe that they are selling Reach-O-Matic XP 3000, but it's really just a shiny stick.

I'm not quite sure if I'm still making sense, but I *am* waiting for something to really grab me again, and right now they have nothing but empty air.

Al
-Oh, and ECW did indeed rule, and even at my young age, I knew the IBF sucked.

[Landatauron]

PoolMan said:

That sounds like me, Robert. Into it for a while as a preteen, then dropped it when it turned out to be a soap opera for middle-aged rednecks.

Oops.

Funny, that's why I got back into wrestling. I used to watch it all the time as a kid. I was totally into it. I had a Hulkamania bandanna. Jake "The Snake" Roberts Wrestling Buddy. Legion of Doom shoulder pads. Then....when I was about 11 or 12 my Dad took me to a match at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. I was stoked, I was going to an actual match. I was going to be in the vicinity (4th row!) of The Ultimate Warrior, Randy "Macho Man" Savage (OOooooooohhhhh yeah!), and Demolition. We were going to be breathing the same air. It was gonna be awesome!

The first match started. For the life of me I can't remember who it was. They do their normal grandstand entrances. The bell rings...they lock up in the center of the ring. Bodyslam! What happened next, I can only remember as the most crushing blow to my childhood. One of the guys reels back and lets the other guy have it.....at least, that's what it looked like. Turns out the guy missed by a country mile. The other guy went down just the same. "Must have been a fluke" I said "Probably just tripped". But no, it happened again and again. I was shaken to my very foundation (I was 10! Leave me alone). My Dad and I watched the rest of the matches and drove home. That night I shoved all my wrestling paraphernalia in the closet and never watched it again.

Until about 3 years ago. I had just got out of boot camp and was staying in the dorms at tech school. I walked into the lobby and a few of the guys were watching Monday Night Raw. I sat and watched the show. Laughing my butt off at the events that transpired. I said to myself "I know it's fake, but damned if it ain't entertaining". Been watching it ever since.

[dajaymann]

FiveMileSmile said:

I just spent over an hour writing a defence of one form of media entertainment from tragic misconceptions in public perception brought about because its easier to trivialise that which we don't understand or appreciate rather than admit, despite it being not to our particular taste, that it may have some merit, artistic or otherwise, to the numerous fans of that particular medium.

But that's just the thing for me - I can't find any merit, artistic or otherwise, in professional wrestling. At least, not in it's televised form. To me, it's a group of outstanding atheletes who are usually exceptionally bad actors, trying their hardest to create some sort of soap opera and superficial rivalries that are played out on screen. And it's not even done tongue-in-cheek. If it was, I'd find more artistic merit in pro wrestling, but I think that it takes itself way too seriously.

Now having said that, I'd like to relate a story (partially to lessen the wrath of Rich) involving me and pro wrestling. About six years ago, I was totally crushing this girl who just happened to be my best friend's girlfriend (and that's a whole other story I shant go into now) and she invited me to go see WCW at Club LaVela in Panama City, Florida. Now, Club La Vela is a legendary club down where I'm from, and I'd never been there before. On top of that I hadn't been into wrestling since I was about 11 and realized I was a nerd and not a jock. So, this chick drags me to WCW, the place is packed, and I proceded to have one of the top ten best times of my life. I was spectacular! I mean, you could tell a lot of the blows were fake, and it was obviously completely choreographed, but there was so much testosterone in the air I couldn't help but scream along with the crowd. And Hulk Hogan was there! And Randy "Macho Man" Savage! Sting (the wrestler, not the singer) dropped into the ring from a helicopter!!! It was AWESOME! Though, eventually this girl broke my heart, this was one of the best times I remember from my late adolescence.

[FiveMileSmile]

dajaymann said:

But that's just the thing for me - I can't find any merit, artistic or otherwise, in professional wrestling. At least, not in it's televised form. To me, it's a group of outstanding atheletes who are usually exceptionally bad actors, trying their hardest to create some sort of soap opera and superficial rivalries that are played out on screen. And it's not even done tongue-in-cheek. If it was, I'd find more artistic merit in pro wrestling, but I think that it takes itself way too seriously.

I would suggest that the probable reason for this is simply that the mainstream product to which you have been exposed, as a rule, sucks, certainly in the areas you highlighted. The fact of the matter is that the talent quite often have no say as to how their plotlines are going to be played out, and are regularly forced into said ludicrous stories (or 'angles' as they are known in Pro-wrestling speak) by a team of backstage writers with the writing talents just sub-par of Melrose Place.

However, just because the most visible form of Pro Wrestling happens to follow that format doesn't necessarily invalidate the medium. Instead, watching superior programming from alternate (and smaller) promotions like the now defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling, or Ring of Honour, gives a much purer, grittier, less wussy drama and more in your face action variant of wrestling which is generally superior in every way to the name brand products; however, it's not really where the money is, so more often than not, people who you grow to become fans of in the smaller promotions will move to the 'big leagues' for the money, only to find themselves trapped in the corporate system and made to be pretty much a mockery of themselves after a few months.

Trust me, its not that the medium is intrinsically bad - its that the common and most popular twelevised form of it also happens to be lowest common denominator.

- Rich