Every now and again, I encounter folks who say something to the effect of “I have no idea why/how you can watch wrestling.” Now, on one level, I know that this is much like when I say something to the effect of “I have no idea how you can eat black olives”. It’s a matter of taste and, like all matters of taste, there’s really no explaining them.
With that said, I do know that I have heard songs and thought them impenetrable crap until someone explained the song to me and then I listen to it non-stop for a month or so. (At least one of my desert island disks evolved for me this way.)
In the hopes that this is more like something inaccessibly exotic than something like black olives (nature’s ipecac).
Well, the first objection is usually of the form “you know it’s fake, right?”
This objection meant a great deal more prior to Vince McMahon letting the cat out of the bag in the 80’s (once upon a time, many states had a law that said that a doctor *MUST* be present for boxing/fighting matches… and that cost money. Vince explained that since wrestling was “fake”, he shouldn’t have to shell out for a doctor) but, just in case, I’ll address it anyway:
There are any number of entertainments that fall under the heading “fiction”. Books… from comic books to pop trashy novels to novelization of history. Movies. Television shows. Songs. Video games. Tabletop games. Hell, the ballet.
It doesn’t make sense to point out to someone reading The Dark Tower that “that isn’t real” and one hopes that one sees why it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to point this out to someone watching Star Wars or someone playing Mortal Kombat vs. The DC Universe. The fact that it’s fiction is much of *WHY* I watch. (Maribou watches UFC PPVs and I can’t. I just tell her to have a nice time and I stay home.) I watch because I am watching a story being told.
Now, we all know about how differently the Olympics are shown when the networks are showing them live vs. when the networks are showing them 10-12 hours after they’ve happened on the other side of the world and they have time to put together little packages first. When it’s live, they tend to get blindsided by Lithuania winning a medal and they haven’t done sufficient background work to find out that the winner’s little sister has hives or whatever and thus don’t have a good *STORY* to tell to go along with the amazing athletic display. If the Olympics are in Japan, however, they can throw together an interview with the little sister talking about how she has to wear socks on her hands to keep from scratching… before you see the event. And then, after the event, you can thrill to see that she’s crying because she’s so happy. Crying into the socks on her hands.
To be sure, different folks have different opinions on these video packages and interviews with obscure family members from obscure countries and the ratings *ARE* better when the Olympics are live rather than live-simulated… but the joys of watching the Lithuanian win the gold are made somewhat greater by the simple act of us being told why we should care before the fact (er, before the live-simulated fact).
Wrestling does the same thing. We are given storylines and personalities and little dramas explaining why this, or that, or the other wrestler cares about winning this match/belt soooo much more than any other match/belt you could name. Moreover, since the guys in the back office have their thumbs on the scale, they know that, in Tennessee, they should have the Tennesseean make a better showing than the guy from New York City. In the Madison Square Garden, they know that the guy from The Bronx will have to beat the guy from Philly. In Philly, they know that the guy from Philly will have to beat the guy from Tennessee.
A small, localized drama (just like the Olympics!) with pre-packaged videos explaining why you should care, why this guy cares, why his little sister cares, and a note that you should tune in next week to see what happens next.
“But sporting events are REAL”, I hear you say.
I maintain eye contact and say nothing to that.
The quality of the stories told also put much of “real life” to shame. Every now and again, you have a great story where a plucky underdog beats the Franchise… but, for the most part, the Buffalo Bills make it to the Superbowl only to be kicked in the teeth. On the off-chance that the Red Sox finally *DO* win a World Series, how likely is it that they become insufferable a mere three years later?
The joy of wrestling is the gift of the folks who put together video packages knowing what’s going to happen while the people in charge of telling the wrestlers what to do know when and how long to make the Red Sox lose… and then, when all hope is lost, when to make them win. And then, again, when to have them lose to the Cubs.
That’s without getting into the issues of morality explored and without getting into some of the greatest storylines told by the various companies and without even mentioning the joys of the backstage politics that sometimes bleed into the ring.
The short version, for what it’s worth, is that wrestling (when it’s done right, anyway) tells a good story.
The Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 and 2004. I think you’re thinking of the Cubs.
Which makes the piece more interesting, not less 😉
> Maribou watches UFC PPVs and I can’t.
I used to watch Thai boxing when I could get bootlegs, and I’ve always paid some attention to the less brutal martial arts like judo and point-match karate. UFC is like watching a meat grinder. There’s a lot of skill in there, but I can’t get into “real fighting” which still isn’t real fighting; if you’re not going to allow anything, there’s no real reason to allow just about everything that you *can* without guaranteeing that somebody gets killed every match.
I’d have something to say about the Olympics but religion is off-limits.
The Red Sox won the World Series in 2007 and 2004.
I presume that’s what JB meant by “becoming insufferable three years later.”
By the way, JB, did you grow up in Colorado? Before the Bills, it was the Broncos that Elway would somehow summon the force of will to drag to the Super Bowl only to be kicked in the teeth by the vastly superior NFC.
The Red Sox have always been insufferable (at least, their fans are).
I moved out here when I was 17. So… kinda.
I was born in Michigan and I moved out to New York when I was 13. This was during the mid-to-late 80’s period where the Yankees sucked in more than just the “Yankees suck” sense of the term.
Er, to answer the deeper question, I started paying attention to football right around the time that Shanahan took over the helm of the Broncos.
By that point, John Elway finally had himself surrounded by enough talent and license to do more than run, run, pass, punt.
Which makes the Donkeys an example of the perfect football story… except for the fact that everybody around Michigan *HATES* the Broncos as much as everybody here (except Fish) loves them.
The Broncos are the only team who can make me cheer for the Raiders.
I think you hit on one of the big disconnects with your Olympic-Fake points.
I think most people who poo-poo wrestling for being fake are most likely sports fans, and are responding to it as if it were a sport. (And to be fair, this is not such a ridiculous criteria to judge it on, it being loosely tangential to actual non-fake wrestling.) Revealed scripted outcomes are the arsenic filled cup of sports. (Hence baseball owners allowing Kenesaw Mountain Landis to create an all-powerful position for himself in 1919.)
The Olympics are indeed televised the way you say, but it’s entirely because there aren’t enough sports fans that are fans of the sports played in the Olympics. (There are some exceptions, like Men’s BBall, which don’t have the human interest stories because they aren’t needed.) Consequently NBC doesn’t present them as sporting events. (For most sports, the human interest piece is long and detailed, followed by a much shorter “scenes from” the actual athletic competition.)
I would think the obvious in for someone you wanted to convert to wrestling would be:
Them: I’ve never really watched wresting, and I don;t know why I would.
You: Do you like Days of Our LIves?
Real Basketball Fans (TM) are actually men who like soap operas.
I was a RBF for two seasons. I watched 157 of the 168 regular season games. I had to ramp up to that position, and dropoff was largely due to time.
When you’re watching that many games, you’re watching a lot of losses, no matter who you’re following. When you have good commentary (miss you, Mr. Hearn), you’re hearing a lot of player info that isn’t related to the game.
When you’re arguing with other RBFs that Nick Van Exel will score 20% above his season average whenever the Lakers play the Sonics ’cause the Sonics passed him over in the draft and he *really* doesn’t like George Karl… you’re basically a soap opera fan.
I don’t think there’s that much daylight between Real Fans of Whatever and soap opera fans.
This is a really, really good point. But then there’s still something that we’re missing…
For example, I like Mad Men, which is basically a high-brow soap opera. It comes on Sundays nights, and I record it. I might fall several weeks behind and watch 3 or four at a time, weeks or even months after they’re aired, and enjoy them just as much. In fact, sometimes I enjoy this MORE than waiting a full week between chapters.
But if a Laker game is on while I’m at the movies, I can’t TIVO and watch it later that night. I just can’t. And I think my experience is common among a lot of sports fans.
(The only game I’ve ever watched “after the fact” was the LA vs. Toronto game in 2006 – the “81 Game” – and that was just for the perverse satisfaction of watching something I’d previously have argued impossible in the modern era unfold.)
So I can’t put my finger on what it is, but it’s there.
Until very recently, your only opportunity to watch wrestling Live was to buy a ticket or to buy a PPV.
Everything else was taped. When you watched wrestling on the television, it said that this happened on (date) in (arena) in (state).
The upside of this was that it was a selling point to buy a ticket when they came to town… maybe you’d watch a match that would eventually make it to television.
“But if a Laker game is on while I’m at the movies, I can’t TIVO and watch it later that night. I just can’t. And I think my experience is common among a lot of sports fans.”
My wife calls this the “quantum TiVO effect”. She claims that since observation determines outcome, then it’s important to watch sports live so that your observation can help produce a favorable outcome. If the game is over, then you might as well just go look up the score, because the outcome is already determined and nothing the observer does will make a difference.
How are you supposed to know whether or not you need to wear your lucky hat in advance? You can’t wear it just because the game is *on*, because you might use up some of your lucky hat’s charges on a game where the team doesn’t need your help.
Now that’s just loser-thinking.
When you wear it when you didn’t need to and they win anyway, that *CHARGES* the hat.
We’re getting dangerously close to religion, here.
Fine, I’ll drop it.
Although I like the idea that you can recharge your lucky hat just by watching a win.
I thought it took more mojo. Yanno, like immersing it in freshly-killed dragon’s blood under the light of a full moon or something.
How else would it recharge?
Are you saying you don’t believe in dragons?
I’ve never taken a dragon with me to an event I was nervous about.
I have never been able to explain to my wife’s satisfaction why watching the game live is better than watching it recorded. No analogy seems to work.
I eventually have to concede that in this instance, I believe in magic — if I watch the game as it’s being played, I must be able to somehow influence the outcome.
‘Struth. I can “see” the game at any level of degradation down to intermittently checking the play-by-play update at ESPN and feel connected to it, but I can’t get that feeling watching it tape-delayed.
I think that Real Sports Fans love the soap opera but they/we (I suppose I’m in this camp, as I’m much more of a sports fan than a wrestling fan) also love the uncertainty. The stories that come out of sporting events and sports seasons are wonderful in part because they aren’t scripted.
I know that for me to enjoy a sporting event, I need to be able to believe that the fix isn’t in. I had to stop following cycling after Floyd Landis’ incredible comeback turned out to be due in part to testosterone doping.
There’s a reason why one of the more famous play-by-play calls in sports is Jack Buck’s “I don’t believe what I just saw.” It only works if you believe that in sports, you must believe what you just saw.
There was a great little statement from Fry on Futurama with regards to Ultimate Robot Fighting:
Man, I thought Ultimate Robot Fighting was real, like pro wrestling, but it turns out it’s fixed, like boxing.
FULL POINT.
The issue is that Real Sports derive their enjoyment from spontaniety; from the notion that, within certain limits, anything can happen. Maybe that guy misses a block and the ball carrier runs 85 yards. Maybe that puck bounces off two different players and goes in the goal.
If it’s all staged, then luck isn’t a factor anymore; you’re watching actors portray a script. You could, presumably, have exactly the same action and outcome even if it was completely different people up there.
You could, presumably, have exactly the same action and outcome even if it was completely different people up there.
Sometimes you have Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel.
Sometimes you have Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane.
Same script… entirely different experience.
The best stories are those told by the wrestlers themselves as they play to their own strengths… this couple of wrestlers specializes in brawling, that couple specializes in chain wrestling, and that one over there specializes in making spots. Same script, different reading… and the different charismas shine through allowing for a storyline you’ve seen a dozen times before seem fresh and new when two guys who are enthusiastic about the telling go for it as if their t-shirt sales depend on it.
Sometimes you have Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel.
Sometimes you have Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane.
Same script… entirely different experience.
Sometimes it doesn’t even take that. There’s a series by Samuel Dealny called Neveryona, which is sort of Sword and Sorcery without the Sorcery. It’s postmodern fantasy, very clever ans self-referential, and if it’s the kind of thing you like you’ll like it. The very first story in the first volume is word-for-word the same as the final story in the final volume. The reason he did this is (I think) because reading the rest of the series makes it a completely different story than it was to begin with, even though none of the words have changed. (It occurs to me that Delany is also a gay man with a daughter, which might or might not make him like Mister Sulu.)
Yes, but that’s just it. In sports, it’s not supposed to be about the personalities. It’s supposed to be about the action. To some extent that’s why organized sports teams put so much emphasis on dress codes (often so picky as to beggar belief; the NFL has regulations on how far up the calf your socks must go). The players are meant to be members of a team, not individuals who happened to line up on one side or the other.
I find that tension between the star player and the team to be one of the more interesting dynamics in team sports. Because a league like the NFL wants to have it both ways–it may have those picky uniform regulations, but it also promotes games with ads featuring player vs. player: “Brady vs. Manning” or whatever. Michael couldn’t win without Scottie, but it was obvious to anyone who was the boss on the Bulls.
In sports, it’s not supposed to be about the personalities. It’s supposed to be about the action.
This sounds like something a coach would say rather than someone who would cut another person for a Ken Griffey Jr. rookie Topps card.
It’s also what an old fish says when he sees athletes celebrating, showboating, and mugging for the camera.
Thinking some more about this, it seems like the insider knowledge is much more of a factor in wrestling than in sports.
In sports, the experience is richer if you know of a history of rivalries between the teams, or what some loudmouth on one team said about the other team’s star’s wife in the media that week. But if the game is good, that stuff is just extra. If you know the rules you can enjoy the game.
I think that wrestling isn’t quite like that. You need to know the history and the beefs and the rivalries to really enjoy it at all. Think that’s true?
Jeez. I don’t know.
There are some storylines where you’re better off *NOT* knowing the past. “Why are you teaming up with Randy Orton? HE KICKED YOUR DAD IN THE HEAD!!! HE ALMOST KILLED HIM!!!!”
Yes, that was years and years ago.
For my part, I would not team up with the guy who kicked my dad in the head.
Even if it was years and years ago.
But, would you team up with someone who pooped into Maribou’s purse?
If you said no, what if they threw in a Klondike bar?
I think it’s more like the Zen parable:
Before Enlightenment, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers;
While one seeks Enlightenment, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers;
After Enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are once again rivers.
If you don’t know *anything*, or you know the whole backstory / can appreciate the physical artistry in the details / whatever, it’s pretty cool. It’s when you know enough to be disillusioned, but not enough to switch your gaze, that it is lame.
Apologies if I’m crossing the “no religion/philosophy” line there, Jaybird, honey. It’s just an analogy!
Don’t let it happen again.
(The best stuff, I mean. Some of it is just lame lame lame, no matter what the lens. )
Jersey Shore comes to mind.
I have nothing to say about the primary topic at hand, but I want to give full-throated praise to the image of the Olympic champion’s sock-handed sister crying through her hives.
Hurrah for that. Hurrah, I say.
Thank you. I did enjoy writing that part.