Wrestling outside of wrestling...

[Guest Hass of Pain]

Yesterday I was down at the Jacksonville Landing in the audience for a live taping of The Best Damn Sports Show Period as the Superbowl is in town. The opening segment was a hilarious interview with Chris Rock, Adam Sandler and Burt Reynolds. After the break, for no good reason, the camera shifts to Monty Brown sitting in the audience who begins talking about the Super Bowl, and says that the Patriots are going to give the Eagles (dramatic pause) "THAAAA POOOOOOUNNNCE". Pretty much the entire audience sits in stunned silence wondering what the hell he was talking about, but it gets worse. Next Jeff Jarrett walks out, with a large guitar in hand, and again 99% of the audience has no idea who he is or what he is talking about. Out next is Nash, who at least a few people recognized, followed by DDP. They all yelled at eachother, and it ended with Jarrett hitting DDP over the head with a guitar, everyone walking about and everybody in the crowd pretty much in confused silence thinking they had just seen the dumbest thing ever.

 

It reminded me of when the nWo would take over the stage on Jay Leno's show, DDP would walk out to save the day and the whole thing would just break down into a faux fight.

 

I always thought this type of thing where fake wrestling took place on other programming was embarassing to wrestling in general. It just doesn't work and makes everyone involved look bush league. I think it's bad for wrestling in general, but my friend is dead convinced that it's good promotion so I thought I would ask for some more opinions.

 

Good or bad for wrestling?

[Hunter's Torn Quad]

The general public don't just know wrestling is 'fake', but they have zero respect for it. Doing shit like this, trying to act like it's all real, not only makes the wrestlers look like fools for trying to prove the unprovable, but it makes the show look like idiots for being part of it. If anything, it might turn some people off rather than lure people in.

[CanadianChick]

That's embarrasing. The only time that wrestling should go outside wrestling is when it's at its peak. But even then, it can be embarassing.

[Guest Hass of Pain]

The general public don't just know wrestling is 'fake', but they have zero respect for it. Doing shit like this, trying to act like it's all real, not only makes the wrestlers look like fools for trying to prove the unprovable, but it makes the show look like idiots for being part of it. If anything, it might turn some people off rather than lure people in.

That's exactly how I feel. Wrestling has to be done in the context of wrestling to be effective as viewers are in a state of suspended disbelief already. If you throw stuff like this out at people who aren't in that state of disbelief, it just looks stupid.

[Hunter's Torn Quad]

And why go after the viewer who, by their very nature, would never buy a wrestling event anyway ?

[Nighthawk]

If it's done right it goes over huge, though that's difficult to do. Just have a sense of humor and don't try to pretend it's real or reference angles. Like King Kong Bundy... everybody loves him when he shows up in the mainstream.

[razazteca]

I think it would be more productive if wrestlers only did interviews on talk shows in character instead of running angles outside of the normal audience. Austin and Vince doing the interview on the Tom Arnold show was productive but somebody like say Bradshaw confronting Cena on the Bill O'Reilly show would be pointless.

[Vern Gagne]

It also depends on who's reprsenting the sport. Big Show, Foley, Jericho, Austin, Rock, HHH all do a nice job during legit interviews.

[LessonInMachismo]

It IS embarassing. I remember when Bret attacked Sasso during a skit on MadTV and the audienced laughed, but it was the wrong kind of laugh. It especially sucked since it was Bret, who is pretty much at the apex of the mountain of people who take their craft seriously.