Why Do We Watch Wrestling?

[Guest Michael Joel Benoit]

I have been watching wrestling all my life. From the good times to the bad. From the Rock 'n Wrestling Era to WWF Attitude. From Hulk Hogan to The Rock. From the bad times of 1995 to the happy times of 2000. Yes, I have stopped watching wrestling...for a short time, and they were usually for dumb reasons (The Undertaker scared me shitless when I was 5 okay?!) but, somehow, someway, I have always been drawn back to it. Even when I didn't watch it, I always played the games, played-wrestle with my aunt and grandpa and heard other kids talk about it. It is a cornerstone of my life that I just can't seem to put away. My mom has told me when I will get tire of watching it. I tell her never. It is just apart of my daily routine like taking a shit, or eating breakfest.

 

And I know that wrestling isn't "cool" anymore. Most of my mark friends have stopped watching it. Or maybe its because we're getting older. Either way, it is mocked and considered ridicolous by society. "Why spend your time watching grown men in their underwear pretend to fight each other?" is the question always asked. My cousin always teases me about my love of wrestling. "THAT IS SO FAKE!" he always saids. I tell him it is not all fake. These guys make sacrifices to do this line of work. They fall from high places. Do injury causing moves. Bump like crazy. "All fake and lies. Those are rubber ladders and toy tables." He always tells me. Rubber ladders? If wrestling is boring and stupid, why do 10,000 people paid money to watch it everynight?

 

Speaking of which, why do we watch it? It is grown men in their underwear pretending to fight each other. That is a pretty dumb reason to be so entranced by something. What is it about wrestling. This pseudo-sport. This show. That attracts us. Why do we spend a good part of our day on these sites? Why are there millions of wrestling sites on the internet? What is it about wrestling that just makes you wanna see it even if the show for this week sucks?

 

For me, it has to be the storylines. That is what got me hooked back. I LOVED Hulk Hogan and his feuds made me love wrestling in the first place though. My mom told me when I first saw a wrestling show and she'll never forget it: I was 1. My cousin who was 15 was a big wrestling mark. It was February of 1988 on the Main Event. Yep. The show in which Hulk Hogan lost the WWF Title to Andre The Giant to set up the title tourament at Wrestlemania IV. My cousin cried when that happened. I was in my crib and my mom said I saw Hogan wrestling and I was hooked. I didn't pay attention to anything else but him fighnting Andre. Ever since then, I have loved it. The storylines have kept me hooked. Heel turns, face turns, suprises, upsets. I watch it just for that.

 

It wasn't until I became a smark that I started to apperciate the atletchism involved. Now, during this slump, the in ring talent of the superstars of the WWE keeps me watching.

 

So, how did you get into wrestling and what makes you continue watching it?

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

I watch because of the overall product. Angles, feuds, etc. But I mostly watch for the athleticism.

 

In what other form of entertainment do you see people hitting each other with weapons of all kinds (lightbulbs, steel chairs, ladders, Singapore Canes), dropping each other from high places (superplexes, top rope hurricanrana's), or just show a great display of human combat? MMA is pretty boring to me, because I don't want to watch a 20-minute headlock or one guy beat the fuck out of another one for about 2-minutes. I don't like watching amateur wrestling, because it's all based on points instead of pinfalls and submissions.

 

But I can sum up the reason I watch wrestling into two feuds: Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer, and Chris Jericho vs. Dean Malenko.

 

I have yet to meet a person that has not been intrigued by the Raven character of the mid-90's, and felt sorry for Tommy Dreamer in that feud. And I've been known to hook people into wrestling by showing them a summary of the Jericho/Malenko feud from 1998 WCW (IMO, the best feud ever).

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I watch it for the Mcmahons...

 

*Hand comes out from behind a curtain with $100 bill...*

 

...Stephanie is such a good actress and Vince is so captivating, I just love to hate him, and Shane is so dynamic, and Linda is... *looks at shadow behind curtain, the shadow nods*... is a piece of ass...

 

*Reads off sheet of paper* They-are-A-mer-ic-as Fav-our-ite Dys-func-tion-al Fam-il-y... Can I have my cat back now?

[Guest Kid Kablam]

why do we watch men and women dress up in archaic clothing, talk in an old form of English? Cuase it's drama man! And sports entertainment is drama. It's sports.... without the boring parts (okay that's in theory purely). But my point is: take UFC. Look at their champions: Shamrock? Severn? Uncharismatic bores really. I mean, let's face it, these guys have no pinache. But in Wrestling, we can take guys who entertain us, and then create the illusion that they have the skills of Shamrock. And let's face it, while UFC and the like are fascinating, the action is pretty restrained. So we choreograph it to spruce it up a bit. It's really just like a movie's distortion of history. The truth, in its rawest form isn't always so attractive. Our heros are not always perfect looking, and our speeches aren't always so inspirational, so we pick out a good looking actor/actress and Re Write the speech to put in it's ideal form. Want another example? Take Ali. The man had it all pinache AND fighting skills. So what do we do? We manufacture Alis. It's nothing to bad, the movies and plays we write do it all the time. And let's face it, boxing is quickly becoming as much of a joke as wrestling used to be (when kayfabe was in effect people mocked it I mean. Not saying the wrestling was bad.) So what do people do if they don't like an outcome? They write a new one.

[Guest deadbeater]

I am a big women's wrestling fan, Japanese, lucha and America. They for the most part work harder than the men, and if you hear some stories, that work ethic and effort comes in very handy from time to time in the locker rooms. Many were beautiful, and very modest and demure outside the arena, but they also can kick ass. And they can demonstrate skills most of the guys abandoned. Since they are smaller, they can innovate as well, such as the Molly-go-Round, a 360-Thesz Press off the top rope to a virtual pin.

 

Chyna, Sable, Lita, and Molly were/are mad over because they kicked BUTT, not because they posed. Trish was a famous model who could have stayed that way and be safe. But she learned some good moves and how to take them, and now she is one of the better rough and tumble women.

[Guest MrRant]

Penis Envy

[Guest The Amazing Rando]

I watch wreslting because Wresltemania 9 captivated me...and then I started watching RAWs and such and was hooked by WM10...and from then I have been a religious fan

[Guest thefrenchargel]

I watch wreslting because Wresltemania 9 captivated me...and then I started watching RAWs and such and was hooked by WM10...and from then I have been a religious fan

You sir, are the only person to be captivated by wrestlemania 9. I can say that with some conviction. heh heh. I just started watching it one day, and I haven't quit. Anymore it's the athleticism I'm into, but I can watch pretty much any kind of human combat, be it boxing, wrestling (amateur or pro) MMA (which i've recently been getting into) bar fights, cat fights, trading punches, kickboxing, karate, arm wrestling, mosh pits, etc. I think i'm intrigued by conflict more than anything, and Wrasslin' puts it all up on a grand scale while telling a story at the same time. Conflict+A base form of theater=one happy argel.

[Guest eiker_ir]

i watch it, beacuse HBK and Bret Hart....those 2 got me into wrestling around 1993.........

 

i watched before but i became a fan thanx to this 2 wrestlers......

[Guest kingkamala]

Well one of the first things I saw in wrestling was actually kinda funny cause it was a WWF toy commercial you know the ones with Savage, I thought hey that guy looks pretty cool but didn't think much of it. A few months later I walked into a video store with my dad and I saw a few wrestling tapes way in the back (Survivor Series 89 and 92, Royal Rumble 93, Hulkamania 4 and WWF Superstars: The Music Video). I rented them all after a short while and got hooked but I didn't know much about what was going on in the wrestling scene then(March 1994) I just watch tapes. Well one late March eve I walked down the stairs to find my older brother watching Monday Night Raw which had a feature match of Macho Man Randy Savage Vs Yokozuna from then I was hooked...for a while.

 

 

I rented all the tapes, watched all the episodes of Superstars and Wrestling challenge(For the most part I wasn't allowed to stay up for Raw), I was a die hard WWF fan even when the almighty Hogan signed with WCW I didn't even switch to WCW. Around January 95 I started to lose interest in wrestling as a whole Dieselmania was running wild in WWF, Hogan and co. were calling the shots in WCW and ECW wasn't on in my area until the TNN show started. Slowly I started to lose interest the last PPV I was really pumped during my first wrestling watching days was Wrestlemania 11 (I was pumped to see the IC title match since Razor Ramon was one of my favorites at the time). Then shortly before King of The Ring 95 my interest dropped out completely (Thank God cause I would have had to watch King of The Ring 95 ).

 

I didn't watch wrestling for a year I focused on school and just generally didn't watch the product. Meanwhile Nitro was being born and WWF was going through it's worst times. I turned my TV on one late May day in 96 to look for something to watch, I found WCW Monday Night Nitro I remember them shilling the main event of Scott Steiner Vs Sting and other assorted matches, well the first match I saw on Nitro was Steve Doll Vs Mike Enos(Where Scott Hall debuted) when I first saw Hall run in I said "HEY that's Razor Ramon he should be in WWF why is he on WCW!?" I was nearly in tears for some odd reason.

 

So one day I switched it to Raw and saw the guy that got me hooked on wrestling forever HBK the guy's pure athleticism and great bumping skills got me hooked. I watched Raw every week to see him take on all comers: Marty Janetty, Leif Cassidy, Billy Gunn, Goldust, Yokozuna I saw him fight all of these guys and all of them were great matches to me as a mark. I ordered my 2nd PPV Survivor Series 96 and I was hooked Bret Hart- Steve Austin and especially Sid- HBK got me hooked till well today and for a very long time.

 

Why do I love wrestling well since I believe it's like an choreographed gladiators where two warriors battle it out. It's the aura of watching a Wrestlemania, it's the excitement of watching a Royal Rumble, it's everything I want in a sport plus more. It's blood, guts and glory from Macho Man doing the ax handle from the top turnbuckle to the floor on One Man Gang to Jeff Hardy doing the Swanton from the chairshot heard 'round the world to Foley's dive off the cell. There's wrestling history at every arena in the US, there's one kid in the US every day just getting hooked to our great sport and those are just a few things I like about this sport.

[Guest PlatypusFool]

Most of the reasons mentioned here are great reasons, but I wrote an article on this subject about a year ago for my girlfriend, who didn't understand why I liked it. Take a read, or don't...

 

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My girlfriend and I had been going out for several months, when, one day, she and I were sat in my room, she glanced upwards to the bookshelf of wrestling videos I own and asked "why do you like wrestling?". The answer for me was simple; because I enjoy it, but she needed more. Questions were raised in my mind about the origins of the wrestling we enjoy today, and how those origins help us to understand why we enjoy watching it as much as we do.

 

Origins

 

Taking the product that has been produced by wrestling promotions as a whole from 1984 to the present day as a whole, I have formulated the following theory about where the origins of modern wrestling stem from. Like a lot new inventions, modern wrestling has been born from a combination of two already excepted forms of entertainment: soap operas and traditional wrestling. To understand why we enjoy modern wrestling, we must first examine why humans in general enjoy those two very different aspects of it.

 

Soap Operas

 

A soap opera (and when I use that term I mean dramatic television serials such as ER, The Waltons and Dallas) features a group of many different characters living and/or working in the same area as one another. The writers create storylines for them, more often than not based around their relationships or problems with one another. You might have a young girl who is pregnant and needs help from her friends, a business man in a lot of trouble with some loan-sharks, or a teacher being sexually attracted to one of their pupils. In the case of every single storyline featured in soap operas, the writers build up the problem in question until it is at breaking point, before ending the storyline in what we will call the ‘big blow-off’. This is one reason why people watch and enjoy soap operas; they want to see what will happen to the characters they feel they know personally next, and what the conclusion to their storylines will be.

 

Also, a particular type of storyline exists in soap operas that is especially relevant when comparing them to modern wrestling; the use of a ‘bad guy’, or in wrestling, a heel. The writers on a soap opera might introduce an evil character into proceedings to interact with their ‘good’, or in wrestling, face, characters, and cause the problems that make the shows interesting for viewers. Using the same examples as above, you could introduce the man who made the young girl pregnant, or the loan-shark the business man owes his money to. People keep watch these storylines especially as they want to see the faces get revenge on the heels for the wrongdoings they have been committing. As long as the heels continue to get away with it, people will watch in the hope that their favourite characters will finally get their own back for the baddies cheating ways. This is why writers hope to stretch these types of storylines out even further before the blow-off, and then advertise the it to high heaven in order to garner as many viewers as possible.

 

Traditional Wrestling

 

In the beginning, long before the time of Hulk Hogan, wrestling was real. It was a sport in every sense of the word, on the same plateau as boxing, football, baseball and a million other competitive sports. Wrestling was about two men getting into a ring, and doing anything within the rules to defeat his opponent. The wrestlers were true athletes with strength, speed and stamina coursing through their veins. What set them apart from other types of athletes was the mental strength needed to memorise all the different holds and counters to holds that you needed to use to win any particular battle. This added consideration made wrestling the thinking man’s choice for a sport to follow, a more considered competition than boxing and yet more physical than other non-contact sports. The enjoyment for the fans of traditional wrestling was appreciating the athletic ability of the competitors, and seeing who was that little bit stronger and faster of the two men in the ring, the question of ‘who will win’ being all important.

 

Adding these two aspects together, at least in my theory, will equal the wrestling we know today…

 

Modern Wrestling

 

Describing this form of entertainment as modern is, perhaps, incorrect. The origins of this marriage between soap operas and traditional wrestling date back to the early 20th century, and was only popularised by Vince McMahon Jr. and Hulk Hogan in 1984, but you get the point. The bare bones of modern wrestling can be created by taking the intelligent sport of traditional wrestling and adding the characters, storylines and, most importantly, the heel / face dynamic of soap operas. The enjoyment of modern wrestling can be clearly understood by taking what entertains in each of its components and adding them together, just like the components themselves. But, to fully explain what makes people watch modern wrestling, I am going to have to break down the fanbase into two halves; the marks and the smarks.

 

Why Marks Enjoy Modern Wrestling

 

A ‘mark’ is, put simply, a person who buys into the storylines, characters and heel / face dynamic of modern wrestling. These are people that should make up the majority of the audience, and therefore their demand for different wrestlers and styles governs what we see on TV. In order to discover why they enjoy wrestling, I will first have to explain how the wrestling business works: a wrestling company, lets say for the sake of having a popular example, the WWF, has a roster of about 30 - 40 wrestlers. The writers, or bookers, of the WWF decide the characters of each of their wrestlers and which of their wrestlers would play a better heel or a better face role, and then set about establishing that character and that role. The people defined as heel will start cheating to get the advantage and win matches against the faces, who will not cheat and only win through legal methods. The WWF will also start broadcasting promotional speeches, or promos, as spoken by their wrestlers which will either help the audience hate them as a heel, or love them as a face. A typical heel promo might feature the wrestler in question insulting the town he is in or the fans in the audience, or even a popular face wrestler. A typical face promo will give the fans what they want, like a popular catchphrase, or the announcement of some long awaited match up. All through these antics, wrestlers will be getting across their characters to the audience. For example, an arrogant character will refuse to have help to win a match, or a cowardly character will start trying to run away from more powerful enemies. The WWF will also run storylines featuring the wrestlers which will help to define characters and their alignments.

 

Once the characters and the heel / face roles have been defined in the minds of the audience, and they hate the heels and love the faces, as well as liking certain characters above others, then we can start seeing where their enjoyment of the product comes from. In the same way as soap operas, the audience will get involved in the storylines, start caring for their favourite characters, and keep watching in order to see what will happen to them next while they resolve their problems. Also, in the same way as soap operas, the heels will add to this as the audience will see them creating problems for the faces and will want to see their favourite characters get revenge on them.

 

The involvement of traditional wrestling in the marks enjoyment of the modern variant is slightly more difficult to picture. Your average mark does not care about the conditioning of wrestlers as athletes or the cognitive elements connected with memorising thousands of holds as well as the individual counters for those holds that I mentioned earlier. Indeed, in today’s wrestling climate, elements of traditional wrestling such as the mat-work, a blanket term used for wrestlers applying holds to each other and countering those holds to try and gain the advantage, have been toned down to cope with the demands of the marks. However, I can theorise the following; that the inclusion of a wrestling element in the soap opera storylines creates clear beginnings, middles and ends of feuds between heels and faces, as well as providing marks with opportunities to get excited about the face taking revenge on the heel.

 

So, for example, the WWF might sign a tag team match for the main event of a show which features two of the companies most hated heels against two of the companies most popular faces. At the start of this tag match one of the faces will take control of one of the heels to a good reception from the crowd. The heel in question might then gain the advantage over the face with some element of cheating, perhaps an illegal weapon shot while the referee is being distracted by the other heel. For the main body of the match the heels will take control of the face in the ring, using heelish tactics to keep him from tagging in the fresh man. This is part of the heels defining their ‘bad guy’ roles, beating on one of the faces and stopping him from tagging with illegal tactics will make the audience hate them because they are being unfair to their favoured wrestlers. Eventually, the face that the heels have been beating on will make a small comeback, laying out the heel long enough for him to make a tag to his partner. The marks will pop, or get excited, for this because finally the faces have a chance of beating the heels. The newly tagged face will run into the ring and sharply deliver his trademark moves to the heel team, finally hitting his finisher, the move that will hurt someone enough for the wrestler to be able to cover him for the pinfall and the victory. The hitting of this finisher will make the marks pop hugely because they know that the heels will finally be beaten by the faces after all the pain they have given them during this match. But say, for example, that the heel no being pinned runs in and breaks the cover with an illegal weapon. The referee then sees this and disqualifies the heel team from the match for illegal behaviour, inadvertently denying the face team the win and their revenge. After the match the heel team beat down on the faces, and one heel particularly injures one of the faces. In subsequent shows the face might cut a promo about what the heel did to him during the tag match, and how he wants revenge. The tag match, has, therefore, provided the beginnings of a feud, and a storyline, between the heel and the face. The middle of this feud might be told in more variations on the tag match, featuring different partners and different numbers of partners for the heel and the face to team with. During these matches the face might consistently hit the heel with his finisher, but the heel will always find ways to avoid actually being pinned, or might cheap to pin the face himself. The heel will also consistently work on the injury he created in the original tag match. In short, all through the middle of the storyline, the heel will be stacking the odds against the face, making it more and more unlikely that the face will defeat him. The marks will constantly keep watching as they always want the face to take revenge on the heel, and never know when it will comes. Eventually, usually at a bigger show then a normal one, the big one-on-one match will be scheduled between the heel and the face. The marks will watch in massive numbers because they know that this is the most likely time the face has to finally pin the heel and blow-off the feud. This is the end of the storyline. We can clearly see that by using the heel / face dynamic along with a storyline centring around the injury of the face the WWF has created a feud which people will enjoy to watch in the hope that the face will finally take revenge on the much hated heel.

 

Why Smarks Enjoy Modern Wrestling

 

The word ‘smark’ is obviously derived from the words smart and mark, or a mark who is wise to the ways of wrestling companies, knows it’s fake, but still enjoys it. It’s this enjoyment that non-wrestling fans usually understand the least, my girlfriend being no exception to this rule. This is what this article is really all about, so why couldn’t I just explain this rather than going through two and a half pages of other analysis beforehand? Well, because of what being a smark is, you can’t understand that without first understanding the minds of marks. You see, I theorise that being a smark means being a mark who can step backwards and look at marks from the outside, and be able to analyse the wrestling in terms of their behaviour. Once you become a smark, you will no longer pop for a face hitting his finishing move on a heel. You will no longer become excited about the prospect of a face finally beating a heel after a long period of the heel avoiding being beaten. You will no longer hate heels for playing unfair, and like faces for doing everything by the book. But, you will appreciate these things in a different light. You can appreciate that a face hitting his finisher on a hated heel will excite the marks. You can appreciate that the blow-off match between a face and a heel is a big deal for marks. You can appreciate the heels for playing unfair because you can appreciate that the illegal actions they are performing makes the marks hate them, and you can appreciate the faces for playing their role well too. All these things that make marks behave the ways that they do are known under the blanket term of match psychology.

 

So, using the above example of the face having an injury inflicted by the heel, we can apply these theories to a possible real life situation. Lets say the injury is to the legs of the face. The WWF will establish the injury by having the heel apply many holds that work on the legs during their matches against each other, and have the face sell the injury, or make it look and seem like his legs really hurt. In the big storyline ending match, the heel works on the legs just as he has been doing for the entire feud, finally locking in the submission move that has been established as powerful enough to make the face give up. The marks erupt, showing their disapproval of the situation, as the possibility of the heel making the face give up and winning the feud becomes very real. The smarks sit back and appreciate the leg work followed by the application of the submission move because we can see that the marks are getting into the match more because of it, and we can say that it is good match psychology. After the application of the submission move, the face will sell the move like he might submit, or tap out, at any moment. The marks will get behind the face, chanting his name maybe to try and give him the power to get to the ring ropes and break the hold, as per the rules of wrestling. Smarks can appreciate that the face’s work in selling the hold is very good, because the marks are getting behind him, we are to assume that they think it is a possibility that he will submit to the hold, and we can assume they think this because of the way the face is selling his pain.

 

However, perhaps I have been overusing the wrong word over the last paragraph; ‘appreciate’ is a word that conjures up images of mature and sedate chin-stroking from the smarks when watching wrestling, and although this is true in some cases, I’m pretty sure it’s false in most. Although smarks will not pop blindly for a face over a heel, they will pop for things that will improve the company as a whole. Recently, when smarks favourite, Chris Jericho, a strong heel, finally won the world undisputed championship, smarks around the world popped for the victory. Firstly, many smarks have believed that Jericho was long overdue a title reign, and secondly, it was widely believed that a Jericho title reign is a great thing for the freshness of the companies product, and therefore, the smarks popped for the win.

 

The final thing we need to understand that contributes to a smarks enjoyment of wrestling is the community that has built up around them. Thanks in a large part to Dave Meltzer and the now infamous Scott Keith, the world of wrestling has been opened up on the internet for all to see, turning massive numbers of marks into smarks and creating the community spirit that now exists. Now a smark can log on to huge amounts of message boards and discuss wrestling with all the other smarks on the board, as well as meet likeminded people and make friends with them. The community spirit is not only enjoyable for smarks, but encourages them to watch the programs as well so as to keep up with what the other smarks are discussing.

 

And now, just to attempt to prove my theories, I shall apply them to two real life examples of very successful storylines in modern wrestling history…

 

Examples

 

Firstly, I have to mention the massive and popular feud pitting Stone Cold Steve Austin against the owner of the WWF, Vince McMahon Jr. This feud ran through most of 1998 and into 1999, spanning a year in total, and drew massive amounts of money for the company throughout this time. The basis of the feud was that Steve Austin was a maverick, a man who refused to obey authority figures, Vince McMahon is the ultimate authority figure in the WWF, the man who possesses ultimate power over all his wrestlers, including Austin, and Vince didn’t want Austin to have the world title around his waist. We can see here that the WWF created a storyline based on the characters and the alignments of the wrestlers, like a soap opera would. Throughout the feud, Vince used bigger, stronger, more powerful wrestlers than Steve Austin to deny him the world title, and screwing Austin over more times than anyone would care to count. This is an example of the heel always getting the better of the face until the big blow-off, making the fans despise him, and love the face. The feud drew massive money because the fans always wanted to see Austin finally defeat Vince and win the feud. The big blow-off match occurred at the St. Valentines Day Massacre where Austin beat the living daylights out of Vince McMahon, and drew a massive fan response as well as a great buy-rate for the show.

 

The other feud that serves as a fantastic example for my purposes is the now legendary one between Raven and Tommy Dreamer in ECW. I really couldn’t tell you exactly how the feud began but I do know that it ran for almost four whole years throughout the history of ECW, and was based around the fact that Dreamer had never, ever, pinned Raven. This was a feud that was carried out a lot more during matches than in promos, as Raven threw everything he has at Dreamer to avoid being pinned during the different matches they had against each other. This was a feud that kept fans interested for four years, always drawing good crowds because the audience always wanted to see Dreamer finally pin Raven. They built the middle of the feud directly towards the end of the feud, creating one event in the blow-off match that would make the marks pop hugely; Dreamer successfully pinning Raven.

 

Conclusion

 

So, in conclusion, marks enjoy wrestling because they are entertained by the faces, and want to see them defeat the heels in well crafted feuds which build carefully from the beginning, through the middle, to a definable end. Marks also watch in order to pop for the big events in the feud, and to be entertained by their favourite wrestlers during matches. Smarks enjoy wrestling because they can stand back and analyse the product, spotting obscure psychology points and discussing these points with each other. They will also pop for things that will improve the wrestling business, and things which they think should happen. This is only the basics of wrestling though, a lot more needs to be explained, and a lot of the things I have investigated today have recently been negated by the strange occurrence of heels becoming faces without doing anything different to their act. But, I feel I have provided a good beginning to understanding the bizarre world of modern wrestling, and hopefully my girlfriend will now start to realise why I love to sit down and watch a quick bit of WWF, AJPW or Toryumon whenever I am bored.

 

Jake Metcalfe

[email protected]

 

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Some of it is a little outdated, but meh...

[Guest Austin3164life]

I have been watching wrestling since Wrestlemania 4, in particular the match between Ted DiBiase and Randy Savage. For some reason, DiBiase made me a huge fan of his because he was a simple yet excellent wrestler who had tons of charisma and a great gimmick for that time. I followed his career, but after about 1992 his career kind of went downward, and then I started watching Shawn Michaels and he became my new favorite (I never liked Bret Hart, but I knew he was great). Then King of the Ring 1996 came around and I started loving some kid named Steve Ausin. From then on I always watched. So I've been a loyal wrestling fan since 1988 until now.

[Guest razazteca]

because there was nothing else to watch on the weekend besides boring bowling on ABC or Track & Field on NBC.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

It's sports.... without the boring parts (okay that's in theory purely). But my point is: take UFC. Look at their champions: Shamrock? Severn? Uncharismatic bores really. I mean, let's face it, these guys have no pinache.

 

Okey Dokie, welcome to 2002. His name is Ortiz, Tito Ortiz.

 

In anycase, MMA has had some matches which equal some great wrestling matches in terms of 'story', heat, technique, and drama. Watch Coleman/Smith, that fight has it all. Coleman is not only the irristable force, but is also the immovable object. His ground n pound has taken out legends of the octagon. Smith is virtually unknown; a kickboxer. Before this match a Kickboxer could never beat a Wrestler, it was just unimaginable. Coleman dominates the first 5 minutes of the match using his signature technique. He uses his wrestling skills to Smith down, and he uses his rage to clubber him into submission. The crowd is just rabid, Coleman is their God and his name is echoed throughout the arena. However, Smith is holding his own and is able to weather the storm. Before the match Smith said wrestlers could not throw a punch, and mocked Colemans style. His prophetic words rang true in this match, as Coleman could not get the job done. Then, the unthinkable happens. SMITH GETS OUT!! Smith, having trained with guard master Kohsaka was able to shift Colemans weight and slip out from under him. The crowd TURNS! 'Smith!' they now cry! Both men stand-up and now they are in Maurices territory. The Hunter becomes the hunted. At around the 9th minute or so, Coleman becomes exposed. He becomes tired. Smith dominates. The God has become Mortal. A beautiful match. Watch Shamrock/Ortiz, Rizzo/Barnette, Belfort/Couture.

 

I see your point about Wrestling and how it takes elements of the real and extends them, but there is no need to bring down MMA in the process, especially with the dated argument you just used.