Why Do People Enjoy Wrestling?

[Guest PlatypusFool]

Why Do People Like Wrestling? - an investigation by Jake Metcalfe

 

Several months ago, under a starry sky, I met the girl I will probably spend a good few years of my forthcoming life with. Over the next few months we learnt everything about one another, culminating in the totally trusting situation we have now, but there is one thing she has never quite understood about me. While sitting in my room one day, with my Tazz tee-shirt hanging to the left of us, and my tape collection sitting to the right, she asked "Why do you like wrestling?". For me, the answer is simple; because I find it entertaining, but she wanted 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]

http://www.geocities.com/thewrestlingrepute/home

[Guest PlatypusFool]

bumpy bump bump

 

sorry, but im not letting this one get lost, i put a lot of effort into trying something different with a wrestling column and im going to try and make sure lots of people have read it.

[Guest goodhelmet]

Yeah, i read this article a little earlier at gpc. I think you have tapped into the dynamic between smarks and marks. I still feel that the marks understand that wrestling is fake yet they don't appreciate the aesthetic beauty or art of wrestling, which judging from some of the posts on this board, some of the smarks don't appreciate the art of wrestling either.