How did you become a smark?

[Guest Nightscrawler]

Hey I'm 14 right now and became a smark last year. I think that I'm pretty young to be one, since all my friends at school are mostly marks, and was wondering how and what age you guys became smarks.

 

I became a smark by listening to a radio show called Live Audio Wrestling. I remember them bad mouthing Hogan and how he was gonna suck at WM 18. I felt that they were wrong, and that Hogan would show them that he could still wrestle. Boy, was I ever wrong! I watched WM 18 and thought, "OMG Hogan is fucking terrible!" I guess that made me leave the mark community, and come into reality. I then checked the internet to learn more about wrestling. So the internet is what basically made me into the smark that I am now.

 

So what's your guys story about how you became a smark?

[Guest Youth N Asia]

You get online...that's it.

[Guest Ray]

You get online...that's it.

Exactly.

 

 

 

Well, that and being around other smarks, absorbing their smarkiness. If you only went to places filled with marks, you wouldn't change any.

 

Is "smarkiness" even a word?

[Guest razazteca]

Pretend to know all of the backstage political crap = Smark.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

A "smark" is just a mark with Internet access.

 

I became a smark around 13, 14. Early 8th grade, when I got the 'net...started forming my own opinions on workers (who sucked, who was good, etc.). I was actually a smark before visiting smark sites or associating myself with smarks.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

I look at "Smarkness" as "marking for the smart of wrestling" - which basically means that if you're interested in what goes on beyond the ring, you're a smark.

[Guest Youth N Asia]

By the time I was in my early teens I pretty much stopped rooting for Hogan and went more with wrestler who put on better matches. So with that I guess that's the early stages of it.

 

And I use to have a buddy who called hotlines, so that helped. But the internet has killed most of those off.

 

I don't like the terms smark or mark. I'm just a wrestling fan with a computer who has stong opinions on what sucks and what doesn't.

[cawthon777 0]

Montreal made me smarten up. I turned on Nitro the next night (was in Alaska so we got the live Nitro at 4pm) and all of a sudden the nWo is singing the Canadian National Anthem and Mean Gene is talking about how a former world champion punked out Vince after the Survivor Series. I went "...Wha?" and scratched my head. Then when Raw came on later that night, I caught more of the story.

 

When I finally got on the Net a few weeks later, I read everything I could get my hands on regarding the Montreal Incident - from interviews with Bret to the Bulldog to Owen to Vince himself.

 

Speaking of the LAW, which was mentioned earlier, I got huge into them the summer of 98. Used to have a collection of the archived interviews on my harddrive. The interview they did with Bret days after his retirement was fantastic.

[Guest RavishingRickRudo]

You can still listen to them using web.archive.org

[Guest William E]

When Vince was booking cartoony crap like Doink the Clown and Krush I found WCW and Benoit....nuff said.

[Guest Blue Bacchus]

I guess it's when I stumbled upon my first dirtsheet (R.I.P. Wrestlewire).

 

Being a Smark ain't all that and a bag of chips. Sometimes I wish I could go back and be a mark again. You know, Cheer for people like HHH, Luger, A-Train, and other hosses. I thought that when Bischoff challenged Vince to a match at Halloween Havoc that Vince was going to show up. Isn't ignorance bliss?

[Guest Coffey]

I'd give anything to go back to being a mark that didn't know anything...

[Guest Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye]

Mr. Jag0 Posted on Jun 14 2003, 10:39 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd give anything to go back to being a mark that didn't know anything... 

 

Me to man, me to. I went to a Stampede Wrestling spot show in town here (buttfuck, Alberta. An hour south of Calgary). I was introduced to a girl who didn't really have a lot of friends in town as kind of a favour to her father(wasn't getting 'set up' or anything).

 

Well we were watching the stuff and she was getting into it a bit but she wasn't really enjoying the matches(most were of current Dungeon students...and they are the future man). Anyway, we got to talking about WWE and who our favourites are. Of course I was espousing the infinite and godly merits of Benoit, Angle, Jericho...and she was espousing the merits of Undertaker and Kane. she has a major crush on Taker and hinks the stuff Kane does(top rop clothesline etc) is just phenominal.

 

So, my first thought was to go all smarky on her and probably look like an ass in the process. I simply said something to the effect of "I really envy you". We continued to watch the show (a good 3 hours long with no filler matches. Seriously excellent shit.) with me really digging it and her just being cool with having some company for a change.

 

Now I look at pro wrestling a little differently. I'm still a raging smark asshole. But I also now watch as a fan. It's been a long time.

[Guest papacita]

I don't think I can point to one moment that I suddenly smarked up. I'd say I was mark up until around SummerSlam 99, but it was more of a gradual change that started with the Monday Night Wars in 95.

[Guest AM The Kid]

I just got two new friends last week and both of them are marks, casual watchers and marks. I envy them a little but I my head I just wanna snap at them.Gosh, they think Goldberg and Triple H are the best wrestlers in the federation and that Benoit is a horrible wrestler. Drives me nuts, so I just keep out of their wrestling conversations now.

 

Hey Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye, what town you live in? There are too many Buttfuck, Alberta towns.

[Guest Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye]

Hey Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye, what town you live in? There are too many Buttfuck, Alberta towns. 

 

My buttfuck Alberta town is Claresholm. Exactly in the middle of calgary and Lethbridge. You are also and Albertan i take it?

[Guest AM The Kid]

Yeah, I'm from Calgary. I know where you're from, boring little town...

[Guest Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye]

Boring is not the word for it..... We should meet up and some point and hit a Stampede show or something if you're up for it.

[Guest AM The Kid]

Yeah, maybe, meeting people from the internet is FUUUUUUN. haha

[Guest RepoMan]

My first hint of smarkiness came when I found the hotlines back in the mid 90's, but I wasn't that much into wrestling so it never really caught on with me.

 

In the late 90's I starting getting back into wrestling hardcore and then I saw The Secerts of Pro Wrestling Reveled. As stupid as it was, I realized wrestling wasn't as "fake" as I thought it was. I became fasinated into how wrestlers actually put on a match. Then my family finally got online, and it was total smarkiness from then on out.

[Guest The Decadent Slacker]

I got online in early-mid '97, & started looking up the most embarrassing of sad little pages (Pillmans 9MM & Big Oren's Wrestling Page come to mind). i knew it was "performance art" but just didn't give much thought to the internet & wrestling together (i was in 5th grade at the time). Then i finally got the hang of it in '98 when i found out a week beforehand that D-lo would go against X-Pac at Summerslam for the European title, but at the time HHH had the title. i watched raw a week later & D-Lo beat him for the title, thus proving that the net was "it"

 

then i got really into it in '99 through a site called 2Xzone.com that ripped everything from the torch, observer, etc. thats about all the boring shit i can remember, or care about

[Guest Big McLargeHuge]

First got onto the Internet in mid-2000. Was looking for something on SummerSlam. Came upon a SummerSlam Rant done by Scott Keith. Read the FAQ at Rantsylvania. Been a smark ever since. Though I've always had a smarkish mentality.

[Guest Indikator]

When I was 10 there was a smark magazine (Power Wrestling) which I read for five minutes - but then I put it away. I read that the Blue Twins quit WWF because of Shawn Michaels - yet I didn´t feel like buying it (Now I would NOT act like that again) . Only 2 years later I finally bought my first issue. And when I was 15 I finally had an internet connection and I was just like:"Ok, the rumors are up to date but I know that these things won´t happen (Benoit is going to be pushed etc...). It didn´t harm me that I didn´t have internet until for all in all 6 years and even nowadays I read most of the rumors and think that even Vince McMahon couldn´t come up with some s*it that the sheets are making up.

I think I became a mark when I knew that Harlem Heat would never ever lose their titles at WCW Saturday Night against Men At Work