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Post by PoolMan on Apr 2, 2004 17:01:33 GMT -5
Hey, I do have a serious, non-antagonistic question for the wrestling fans here. I repeat. I'm being serious for a minute.  Is wrestling even aimed at kids any more? When I was young, wrestling was cool for us to watch. It was violent, but it was largely innocent, filled with goofy characters. Now it's beer-chugging and sex... so are the kids still going? |
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Post by bladestarr on Apr 2, 2004 18:23:32 GMT -5
Yeah, I remember that. Anyone remember the WWF cartoon? I loved it when I was a kid, especially the Junkyard Dog and the Iron Sheik, they rocked. I also do a mean "Macho Man" Randy Savage impression "ooooo yeah!". ;D
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Post by PoolMan on Apr 2, 2004 18:32:28 GMT -5
Everyone thinks they do a good Macho Man.
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Post by FiveMileSmile on Apr 5, 2004 6:39:41 GMT -5
Lots to clear up here, so here goes nothing. ..................but u can prove it can u??  I can; my advice to you is to read any single autobiography of any major wrestling figure from say the lat 30 years. Anything from the Dynamite Kids Auto to the two really wonderful books by Mick Foley (better known as Mankind/Dude Love/Cactus Jack) will reveal that the results of each match are pre-determined, and the majority of the in ring moves are discussed or even rehearsed before the match. While some of the moves and sequences you see are called during the match, usually with the help of the referee and managers in passing messages between the grapplers, it’s a stone cold fact that every result of every pro-wrestling match has been decided before the match takes place. ;D People say the punches are fake...i can explain that, you see in the wwe a rule goes...never use a closed fist to hit an enemy cuz u might get disqualified....and ur foe can get a black eye... its all real...xcept some of the backstage action though  Yeah, everyone pays a lot of attention to the ‘no closed fist’ rule as well :rolleyes: x1000 On the other hand, let me explain something to you non-wresting educated detractors… I happened to see a few seconds of pro wrestling the other day, and you can SEE that it's fake. The guy did a body slam, but he came down on his knees and elbows. You could see light between him and his opponent and they still acted as if it hurt the guy on the bottom. What more proof do you need? Even if you think they did touch, I challenge you to wrestle for real and see how much you can affect your opponent when your knees are down (hint: it's not much). Besides, you admitted it yourself: So they're in a real fight but use a deliberately weak attack to avoid giving a black eye to the guy they're trying to kill? Yeah, that makes a world of sense. I just don’t know where to start here:- A body slam is where one guy picks another up and slams him back down onto the mat. If the guy getting slammed somehow ended up on his hands and knees, then what you saw was BAD WRESTLING. Sufficed to say that there are some bad wrestlers out there, and this might have been one of them. When wrestlers train to become wrestlers, do you know what the first thing they learn is? Its how to ‘bump’ as they call it, which is essentially the art of hitting the mat/ground/whatever without getting too badly hurt. Notice I didn’t say “without getting hurt”; that’s because no matter which way you slice it, if you’re dropped onto a canvas mat from 6ft in the air, its going to hurt – these guys are just conditioned against it. So, if you see a move that obviously makes no contact, that’s called a ‘whiff’. People who do that a lot tend to be awful wrestlers, and given that the number of people who want to be pros outweighs the number of actual pros by hundreds to one, it figures that there are more bad wrestlers than good. For those of you who are interested, the opposite of a ‘whiff’ is a ‘blown spot’; where the wrestler attempting whatever move does it so spectacularly wrong that they have a chance of injuring themselves or their opponents by not taking care of them properly. Blown spots accounts for a lot of the legitimate injuries that occur in the Pro Wrestling ring. Well, keep in mind, Doc, that you only have to be good enough to fool an audience that's 90% drunk people.  The response to this is a little complicated in that you’re both right and wrong at the same time. If you’re an up and coming independent wrestler wrestling on the local card in Nowheresville, Illinois then the chances are you don’t want to risk your behind pulling out your more flashy and dangerous moves; plus, there are no cameras to give the people a close look at the action, so you can afford to be a little more careful. On the other hand, most of the trueup-and-comers will give 100% every night regardless of audience; word of mouth has a powerful influence in getting you from being a nobody to your foot in the door of a major promotion, and you never know when your opportunity might be in the crowd that night. So the answer there is that sometimes that’s true, but people tend to go farther anyway. The flip side of that is that once you have national exposure, you have cameras only feet away from you, broadcasting to millions of homes across the world, sometimes live. Withy so much exposure so close to you, the pressure is to deliver a more believable product, which means that you have to work harder, make your blows look stiffer, and generally hurt yourself and our opponent more. On the other hand here, since its generally accepted the world over that Sports Entertainment is just that, Entertainment, some guys will go out there and deliver terrible looking offence, in the belief that everyone knows its not real anyway. The short version of all that is this; good wrestlers make it look good; bad wrestlers only have to be good enough etc etc etc. Hey, I do have a serious, non-antagonistic question for the wrestling fans here. I repeat. I'm being serious for a minute. Did you know that you ere quoting the catchphrase of popular Canadian grappler Lance Storm there, or are you just channelling his Canadian spirit in this wrestling thread? Is wrestling even aimed at kids any more? When I was young, wrestling was cool for us to watch. It was violent, but it was largely innocent, filled with goofy characters. Now it's beer-chugging and sex... so are the kids still going? The short answer is no, its not. The long answer goes a little like this. Back in the mid 1990’s the two supercompanies of wrestling were the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) owned by Vince McMahon, and WCW (World Championship Wrestling) owned by Ted Turner. Both companies ran weekly wrestling shows on Monday Nights, competing for ratings. Unfortunately for McMahon’s WWF, his company was in jeopardy due to a US Court Steriod Abuse investigation, an unhappy locker room of wrestlers, and flagging ratings; mainly caused by the parade of goofy characters thrown at the audience who were predominantly over 18. On top of that, WCW, without legal troubles and with money to burn, lured away several of the WWF’s top stars with promises of high money contracts. Desperate to find a way to save his flagging promotion, a decision was made to abandon the old ‘family-centric’ aspect of wrestling in favour of a new, more edgy show. Sure, there were still restrictions on what people could say or show on TV imposed by the cable company, but rather than staying inside a safe margin, the WWF writers began to ride the edge of the envelope in terms of what they would do and what they would show. This change, known as the ‘Attitude’ era, would go on to turn a recent former WCW signing ‘The Ringmaster’ Steve Austin into Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Austin would go on to become arguably the biggest star in wrestling history. Ironically, WCW were forced to also adopt their product to this new edgier format to keep up with WWE, but faltered in making the change, and ultimately crashed out of the business in 2003 only to be bought out by their former rivals, the now WWE. * * * * There, I think I’ve answered everything now. Any more questions, I'm here to stem the tide of ignorance. - Rich |
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 5, 2004 7:42:08 GMT -5
Sorry I don't know the lingo--what I saw was the kind where you jump bodily onto an opponent already on the mat. The jumper was the one who landed on his hands and knees.
Odd, in this situation, what you described would be considered GOOD wrestling in what I used to do, as opposed to landing flat on your back at the whim of your opponent. Because that's how you lose.
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Post by FiveMileSmile on Apr 5, 2004 8:20:24 GMT -5
Sorry I don't know the lingo--what I saw was the kind where you jump bodily onto an opponent already on the mat. The jumper was the one who landed on his hands and knees. Ah-ha; what you just described is called a 'Splash', and is definately one of the more bogus moves in a 'sport' full of bogus moves. I get the impression from your posts that you're part of a wrestling team or similar yes? Dod you know that two of the biggest names in Pro Wrestling recently have both been NCAA Wrestling Champions, and one is a genuine real life Olympic Gold Medal Winner in Freestyle Wrestling? A background in real wrestling is normally the sign of an excellent pro-wrestler. - Rich |
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Post by Head Mutant on Apr 5, 2004 9:10:15 GMT -5
And is also the sign of a sell-out taking the path of least resistance. Literally.
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Post by FiveMileSmile on Apr 5, 2004 10:00:17 GMT -5
Yeah, because when Kurt Angle won the Gold Medal in 1996 in Seoul in Freestyle Wrestling for America he was definately only doing it so he could get into professional wrestling That sounds like the path of least resistance to me... In fact, Angle has said repeatedly that he laughed Vince McMahon's offer out of the room twice before actually going backstage to see the show, and was so impressed by the physicality and skill of the other wrestlers that it convinced him that it wasn't the joke he thought it was. - Rich |
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 5, 2004 10:31:49 GMT -5
Used to be...I wrestled three years in high school. I sucked at it though. Should have gone into the drama club.
I thought the Olympics were in Atlanta that year?
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Post by Head Mutant on Apr 5, 2004 10:45:24 GMT -5
Only six rolly-eye thingies? Man, am I ever losing my touch.
And I'm sure Mr. Angle's impressedness certainly wasn't impacted by the large sums of money that were thrown his way. Never. Professional fake wrestlers are above such materialistic nonsense. They just fake wrestle for the fake glory of it.
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Post by FiveMileSmile on Apr 5, 2004 11:07:37 GMT -5
Yes, it was in Atlanta, my bad. I knew it was 1996 he won in though, and heres the link to prove itYou know, while pro-wrestling may be fake, I think a lot of the people posting here seem to think that its somehow easy and requiring no skill as well. Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but you're all wrong. Wrestling's not an easy option, its not the 'path of least resistance'. Its a 300 day a year multi-national road trip, with most people in the ring two or three nights running; people wrestling with injuries that would sideline a 'professional' athlete because the 'show must go on'. The money is must worse than you would get in any other major American sport, even for the top guys. You may not like the form of entertainment they provide, and may feel free to mock those that do because it somehow makes you better than them, but to suggest that the people involved in that business have an easy ride just isn't true. - Rich |
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Post by FiveMileSmile on Apr 5, 2004 11:09:34 GMT -5
And I'm sure Mr. Angle's impressedness certainly wasn't impacted by the large sums of money that were thrown his way. Never. Professional fake wrestlers are above such materialistic nonsense. They just fake wrestle for the fake glory of it. He turned down his offer twice; each time offering more money. It took them 4 years to convince him to join the WWF. Not exactly the acts of Scrooge McDuck here. - Rich |
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Post by DocD83 on Apr 5, 2004 11:23:11 GMT -5
I'm certainly not saying that. I know it's tough and I know I'd never be able to do it, steroids or not.
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Post by PoolMan on Apr 5, 2004 12:30:20 GMT -5
Did you know that you ere quoting the catchphrase of popular Canadian grappler Lance Storm there, or are you just channelling his Canadian spirit in this wrestling thread? Okay, that's twice I've been accused of "quoting" pro wrestler's by accident. Either you guys are jerking my chain, or I need to upgrade my vocabulary. "Oh yeah, Under The Tuscan Sun is going to bring the PAAAAAAIN, brother!" |
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Post by funkymartini on Apr 5, 2004 12:52:56 GMT -5
Are the Mick Foley books worth reading?
Also, I'd recommend two GREAT documentaries on wrestling, "Beyond the Mat", which follows Jake "the Snake" Roberts, Terry Funk, and Foley, and "Wrestling With Shadows" which documents Bret Hart's career, and how Vince McMahon screwed him over.
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