Is It Better To Be A Mark

[Guest WMHSWolf]

Is It Better To Be A Mark?

By Nick Renton

 

I can't really remember when I became a wrestling mark, it just kinda happened. I know my first pay-per-view was the god awful WrestleMania IX. I can remember the first live event I ever attended at the Palace of Auburn Hills. I even remember the first time I actually jumped up and down with excitement. Actually, this isn't that surprisng seeing as how it was when Mick Foley won his first WWF title in December 1998. This of course was prior to my discovery of "internet wrestling". During the course of this column try to take yourself back to a time when you were a Hulkamaniac to the core, when you wished you were the kid getting the glasses from Bret, when all you wanted in the world was to meet Giant Gonzalez. Well, maybe not that last one.

But, really when does one become a wrestling mark? Is it the first time you see Hogan "hulk up"? Or is it when you start watching week in and week out? Do you have to follow every storyline and know every titleholder? How long do you have to follow wrestling to be a mark? Do you need Dave Meltzer to confirm something to believe it can happen?

No, you're a mark from the moment you set your eyes on a match and don't change the channel. From that point forward, until you lose interest completely, you are a mark. No matter how casual a viewer, you are a mark. You are a mark on the mere merit that in some small fashion you now enjoy watching wrestling. Then one of the best/worst things that can happen to you does: you discover internet wrestling. You become a smart. You begin to care about the stupidest things. This begs the question, is it better to be a mark than a smart?

If you think about it, marks have a lot they can boast over smarts. Marks can still get excited when Goldberg debuts. A mark doesn't leap out of his seat when he sees the eleventh Triple H segment on RAW. To a mark, the saying "anything can happen in the WWE" is still true. To many marks, RAW is probably still an enjoyable show most of the time. Unlike us smarts, who hate Goldberg, loathe Triple H, and can't bring ourselves to watch RAW half the time. Smarts have every disadvantage, we can't just change the channel most of the time. We have to go onto our message boards and bitch. We have to go get our favorite writers opinions to supplement our own. Bear in mind, I have done everything aforementioned and am in no way trying to pass judgement on the internet wrestling community.

If you think really hard about it, doesn't it seem like being a mark might be pretty cool sometimes? Of course for us "privileged" few thats not possible. Even if we stopped visiting our websites and message boards, we could never truly be marks again. Sure for a while we might enjoy knowing nothing, but then Chris Benoit would lose to the Big Show or Triple H would pedigree the roster and declare himself God or somesuch. Even barring this possibility, our need to know more than what we can learn by watching RAW and Smackdown would kick in and it would be time to get back online. Meanwhile, Johnny Markalot is too busy chanting "you suck" at Kurt Angles entrance to have any of our cares or worries.

In the end, I like being a smart. I love bitching to my friends about backstage politics. I love watching my New Japan tapes and screaming "I AM CHONO" at the top of my lungs. I guess the question is, though, are the guys screaming "Rocky sucks!" having a better time than we are?