Hate it? Love it? Pro Wrestling.

In My Humble Opinion
21

Now to be fair, there were a couple of mitigating circumstances on that one. First, the guys at the show were all given the option of stopping it right there by the company owner. The wrestlers all decided that Owen (Hart, the wrestler who died) would have wanted the show to go on regardless, so despite everything they went ahead with the show.

Second, this happened at a live Pay Per View event. Which means that as it happenned, there were a couple hundred thousand people around the country tuned in on their sets. Rescheduling the event wouldn’t have been too difficult, but rescheduling and giving a refund to each and every person who bought the show, plus the live crowd, plus the venue fees, plus the advertising, etc. would have been rough.

22

Hey, I’ll admit I watch it.

I grew up with the AWA before Vince Mcmahon raided them for talent. Ken Patera, Jesse Ventura, Andre the Giant, Sgt Slaughter, Jerry Blackwell, Hulk Hogan, Stan the Lariat Hanson, Scott Hall, The Road Warriors, Greg Gagne, Vern Gagne, Jim Brunzell, The Crusher, The Freebirds, Baron von Raschke etc… etc…

Hell I’ve seen Bobby Heenan wrestle.

I will admit it has certainly evolved from where it started and that is not all good but it is certainly successful. Like him or not Vince is a genius. He has taken a fringe “sport”/entertainment package to the top of the heap.

Remember when the referee had to see the tag in order to change the legal man in the ring in a tag match? No such thing as a legal man now.

One good thing though is in the AWA days the second guy introduced for a match always won, now you never know.

23

Add me to the list of, ‘Well said, Biotop’. You made some interesting points.

Wrestling’s narrowing the gap between economic and educational boundaries seems like a reasonable argument. But wouldn’t that be assuming that the well educated, higher wage earners, actually watch and follow these programs to begin with? Not to be arrogant, but I doubt I could talk to friends or acqaintances about what the ‘Rock’ is up to lately. They’ve probably never watched, nor would ever want to see, one of these performances.

Again, not to sound arrogant, but it seems decidedly aimed at the lower, uneducated, class of people who can easily dismiss reality and escape into this overly simplistic fantasy world of only good vs. evil. This mentality is far easier to understand and contemplate than the complicated lives most of us lead. Considering that the characters never stray from the accepted ‘norms’ of their roles, and you have a very narrow vision on what to think. Good is good and bad is bad. Not much to decide on your own in that set-up.

Add to this mix the glaringly obvious sexual innuendo and violence that has become the norm these days, and I’d be hard pressed to rate it any lower than the PG-13 standard. It’s painfull to watch parents with their pre-teens screaming for someone to take the ‘undertakers’ head off.

These are only my thoughts, however.

BlackKnight- I had the ‘sleeper’ hold done on me and almost passed out. The moves they do can be incredibly painfull, when done to inflict pain. But most of the moves can be faked. Remember the reporter who questioned the wrestler about it being ‘real’ or not? The wrestler took umbrage to the question and slapped him in the ear, causing permanent damage to his hearing. When done in the ring, however, there are techniques that could have avoided this type of injury, techniques the reporter didn’t know about, and the wrestler in question didn’t want to use. From what I’ve read and saw, the main objective of all wrestlers is how to ‘act’ like your hurting someone when your not, and how to ‘act’ like your being hurt when your not.

With all this said, I don’t dismiss that wrestler’s are a athletic goup of people and that wrestling takes a tremendous amount of ability. ::Their acting could use some help, but I digress::
UPDATE-
Jesse the ‘mind’. It seems that Jesse has decided to downplay his role in the Navy Seal Team. According to a report this morning, Jesse started off training for UDT (Underwater Demolition Team) training. Soon after he made training and basics, the team was merged with the Navy Seals. According to a person on the radio, the UDT and Seal basic training programs are worlds apart. UDT being relatively easy compared to Seals.

Again, this guy has no grasp on reality. A true wrestler in any sense of word.

24

I agree completely. Wrestling is kind of like a soap opera, where even though you know the combat is staged and largely predetermined, you don’t know what the story will bring. It’s fun trying to guess what will happen, who will team up, what friendships will end, etc.

As for the athletics, sure it’s not a real sport. But I take nothing away from the performers. For one thing, they are better actors than a lot of TV and Movie actors. The storylines are way better than the scripts for, say, Deep Blue Sea or The Haunting, and the acrobatics! Those people are nothing less than world-class professional stuntmen, not to mention phenomenal athletes. YOU try dropping 30 feet onto a table, toss a 250 lb. man around, or leap 20 feet across a ring onto another person without receiving or causing any injuries.

Regarding the Owen Hart tribute show, I respect and admire what the performers did. They dedicated their individual performances to him, and honored him in their own way. His family was not offended that the show went on, and so none of the rest of us have any business being so.

Whether you enjoy the entertainment they provide or not is none of my concern. But even if I didn’t like it, I still would have nothing but respect for the people who live that life and do those AMAZING stunts.

25

Biotop, will you be my friend? :wink: That was very well said. Here, here.

That is exactly what I have been trying to say to Demo about why I love it, it is a pardoy of society and morality declining around us, not the cause of it. It’s funny! I rank it with Howard and South Park and such shows. Yea, they are trashy, and that is why they are so funny.

26

hate it! but I can’t seem to avert my eyes…

27

From Joe_Cool

You’ve got to be kidding. Their acting is on par with the apes from 2001. Please. It usually degrades to- ‘WOooooo! WOoooo! Give me a WOooooo! WOooooo!’. That’s some great character development.

It’s so pathetic it’s not even funny. It’s like struggling through Bob Sagat on Family Matters. And Erkel! Don’t get me started. But even these slugs can run circles around the ‘Undertaker’, ‘Mankind’, and Vince McMahons son. Who can watch that and tell me they can actually act!?!

Maybe if they actually sent these guys and gals to an acting class, just once, it might be easier to accept that Vince’s daughter actually joined the ‘Dark Side’ and is truly troubled. Until then, it’s not only pathetic, it’s offensive to anyone with half a brain.

28

Thanks for the editorial, but some of us have considerably more than half a brain, and are not only not offended by it, but entertained. Have you ever watched either of the movies I mentioned? The ones that spent $100,000,000 on effects and an A-list cast, and about 37 cents on the script? And by the way, you made my point by comparing the acting in wrestling to the acting in a) a classic sci-fi movie, and b) 2 prime-time, highly rated sitcoms. Which, by the way, you obviously watched often enough to critique the acting abilities of the main characters. So stuff the high-brow sophisticate bullshit someplace else. I’m not interested.

If ya don’t like it, don’t watch it.

29

Whoops, did I post that out loud?

30

My post was a bit harsh. But it’s what I believe. I also believe you can watch any damn thing you want.

But keep in mind, when you make a post stating that pro-wrestlers are, quote: “better actors than a lot of TV and Movie actors”, your bound to find someone who disagrees.

By the way, I’ve never seen the $100,000,000 movies you mention. What I did mentioned was that wrestler’s acting ability is worse than the feeble attempts of Bob Sagat and the Erkel kid, not the same.

If you truly believe their acting and story lines are better than alot of actors on T.V. and the movies, than more power to you. Like you, I was expressing my opinion.

31

It’s cheap, badly-acted entertainment. It’s the celebration of the crass. It plays out like a four-color comic book, where the super beings take turns being heroes and villians.

I enjoy it. I place it in the same genre as Godzilla and kung fu movies.

It’s improvisation with stunts and acrobatics. As posted by Biotop, the scrips are often rewritten based on audience response.

What can I say? sometimes I want a greasy hamburger as opposed to a steak.

Hell, my sig covers my view on this topic pretty well, I think.

32

I believe the reporter was John Stossel, but I’m not sure who the wrestler was.

Over the years, my bro has performed many wrestling moves on me, both with and without my consent. Mostly, this was done before he knew anything about how the moves are “faked”. Sleepers are probably dangerous, but at least they don’t hurt as much as a real atomic drop! Ouch. I couldn’t walk straight for a couple of days after that one.

At least I got a real figure-4 leg-lock on him once though. :wink:

Note:
An atomic drop, in case anyone doesn’t know, is when you stand behind someone, pick them up, and slam their tailbone down on your knee. Of course, in pro wrestling what you’d really do is stop just short of kneeing them and they’d put on a good show of how hurt they were supposed to be. In real life, it HURTS!

33

I might not hate professional wrestling so much, if it were actually a sport and not just a bunch of scripted stunts.

34

Maybe not the primary cause, but actively contributing to it. If this was watched by adults only, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. When I see kids watching it, I shudder. Really. Kids watching a woman getting bashed over the head and laughing about it is not funny IMO. Neither is all the relationship drama currently going on. If you think kids are not watching this and absorbing some of it, you’re sadly mistaken. As Tark said, the kids who watch it are much more prone to violence.

I think, at best, it’s a miserable form of entertainment and agree with Cnote on the pitiful acting. At worst, it’s a social enigma, dumbing of America material. I won’t get into the subliminal advertising propaganda or self promotion aspect of it. Subliminal is the wrong word, obfuscation may be closer.

35

I did not know this. Thanks to you and to Joe_Cool for the info that Hart’s family had no problem with the show going on.

All I can tell you was that if it were my brother or other relative that had died, or if I were a fellow performer, I would NOT want the show to go on. But the fact that they did poll the other performers, and that the family had no problem with it, is good enough for me.

36

Joe Cool, I really don’t think this is the case. Bret Hart (Owen’s brother) has been very vocal againt Vince McMahon, in every forum he’s been given and on just about every topic he can be. They (O. Hart’s widow and parents) are also in the middle of a nasty wrongful death lawsuit against the WWF. You got any evidence that “His family was not offended that the show went on”?

37

Maybe next time, each of us should just quote the whole fuckin’ thread!!! Don’t you people know how to use a regular quote, or at least fricken edit your post???

Christ!

38

Some of us do.

And could you please stop wasting those punctuation marks? There are little starving sentences in China that could use them!

< ducking and running >

P.S. In all seriousness, Demo has a point. Either use (quote)*quoated material here(/quote), replacing the “()” with “{}”, or cut out the extraneous parts of the post that you’re whole-quoting.

Another good point: Rasslin is NOT for young kids. It’s PG-13, at the very least, IMHO.

39

Some of us do.

And could you please stop wasting those punctuation marks? There are little starving sentences in China that could use them!

< ducking and running >

P.S. In all seriousness, Demo has a point. Either use (quote)quoated material here(/quote), replacing the “()” with “{}”, or cut out the extraneous parts of the post that you’re whole-quoting.

Another good point: Rasslin is NOT for young kids. It’s PG-13, at the very least, IMHO.

40

And for God’s sake - Stop double posting!

:wink: