The best comparison...
It is very hard to classify Professional Wrestling.
It is very much a unique thing. Beyond the "pseudo-sport" and beyond "low-brow entertainment" that the mainstream would classify it as. Beyond the "art" and "morality play" that wrestling fans try to intellectualize it as. Beyond that. What professional wrestling is, is... well... professional wrestling. There isn't much you can compare it to.
The people who call it a pseudo-sport, the people who call it low-brow entertainment, the people who call it art and a morality play... they all have something there, but it's not the whole story. The goal of sport is to present a competition with winners and losers, which wrestling does present. Wrestling is pretty simple to 'get' and it does pander to the lowest common denominator. Wrestling tells stories and takes a certain amount of skill to perform, so one could see it as an art. And there is the element of good vs. bad and morality in it, and it is put forth before an audience.
But there is one distinct element, and it's the most defining element of professional wrestling, that is not covered by these descriptions.
Wrestling is about the audience. It is about satisfying the audience, it is about connecting with the audience, it is about getting a bigger audience in your next show than the one you have on your last. It is about making money.
Sport is not about making money. It does make money, but the primary goal of the athletes is to win and score points. Art is about conveying a feeling, or a situation, or showing a degree of skill. You can't really compare a painting or a song with wrestling. You can compare some elements of a film or theatre with wrestling, but the goal of film and theatre is not really to make money - that's the goal of producers and studios - but the actors, director, writers, etc. their goals are not to make money, and they don't have the immediacy of the live audience. Those involved in the process may want to be telling a story, or to perform well, or to get an award or critical acclaim, but it's not about making money. I think this is where we start to pervert what wrestling is.
Wrestlers are not actors. They are not artists. There is not an OSCAR that they are looking for. Yet some rate them as if they are out to win one - or at least the wrestling equivalent of an OSCAR - which is unfair. I find it silly to criticize a wrestler for no selling something when that very no selling gets a strong reaction from the crowd - as it is the wrestlers job to get that reaction from the audience. "Selling" is a means of getting a reaction from the audience, just as storytelling is, just as cupping your hand to your ear is, just as doing a really cool move is, or working a sleeper hold, or payback spots, or even no selling. There are many ways to get that reaction, but it's the reaction that matters, not how they get it. Their performances are only as good as the reaction it gets from the live audience. That is what makes wrestling unique.
Which leads me to the most apt comparison I can make to professional wrestling. And that is...
Stand-up Comedy.
Comics are similiar to Wrestlers in this regard: Jokes are moves; There is build and pacing and even selling, and most importantly, there is the audience. A successful comedian, a good comedian, is one who does what?
Get the most laughs. Get's the loudest reaction.
Ditto Wrestlers.
A Comedian doesn't have a script to work from. Neither to wrestlers. Sure, there are preplanned spots for both, but if the audience isn't feeling it, then good Comedians will adapt. When to tell the right joke, to know when the right time to follow-up on a joke, to know how long to let the audience laugh for, to know when to leave the stage. That's what comedy is all about, that is what wrestling is all about. The ultimate goal is to make the audience laugh. It doesn't matter if their stories make sense, it doesn't matter if the Comedian contradicts what he said, it doesn't matter whether it is high brow or low brow, it doesn't matter if the Comedian uses a thousand F-bombs or none... as long as the Comedian gets that audience laughing... it doesn't matter. It only matters when the audience isn't laughing. It's silly to call a Comedian who has an audience eating out of the palm of his hand, to bad Comedian. You may not like it, you may not laugh, but that's where true objectivity comes in - even when it doesn't work for you, you can still admit to it working for others and give the Comedian credit for that.
Ditto Wrestlers.
Yet we don't evaluate Comics on things like logic. Which is a big problem with how fans look at wrestling.
It doesn't matter if the match doesn't make sense, it doesn't matter if someone forgets to sell the leg that was being worked on, it doesn't matter if they used high spots or garbage... as long as the Wrestlers get the audience into it... it doesn't matter. It only matters when the audience isn't into it. THEN you can look at things like no selling, like logic, like high spots and garbage. Bringing up those things to explain why a match doesn't work, when the match did work, doesn't make sense. Why it didn't work _for you_, sure, but then don't claim objectivity when you make those statements in the face of it working for the vast majority of those watching live.
We evaluate Comics on how they made us laugh and how they made the audience laugh. Not by how the story about the baby selling weed on the street doesn't make sense. I think the same should apply to Wrestler. Because the goals of the two are more similar than they are to any other performer out there.
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