I have never seen this topic get brought up here, so I thought I would dive into the great unmentioned and see what you dopers feel about this “sport”. Do you watch it, and if you do why do you, if you do not, then why? What are your general thoughts on it, that’s all! I bring this up, in part, because I personally help run an online community of Pro. Wrestling fans over at…
…and I am usually just surrounded be guys and gals who love it as a whole, that is why I come to you. I want to know if you watch it or not, and why. Or hell, just talk about anything about Pro. Wrestling that comes to mind, let’s ask questions, and just chat it up about this topic!
I write an online column about wrestling. Look for Tanya
I’m also friends withHyatte.
And a look at the user name should indicate who my favorite wrestler is. Go Jeff with your bad, almost beat Taker self.
My wife, kids and I all watch it most every week. It’s one of the few television shows I try to make time to watch. Here’s some reasons:
For one thing, it’s the only show that we all agree to watch. I can only sit through so many Scooby Doo cartoons before I start saying “Zoinks!” and “Rrruh?”
I’ve heard some people describe it as a “soap opera for guys”. My wife and several of her friends prove this to be false. Perhaps back when pro wrestling was trying to be passed off as a legit sport and they didn’t have the storylines this was true. They have the characters settle their differences in the ring. If daytime soaps did this they’d be a lot more interesting. It’s a soap opera that knows it’s cheesy and pokes fun at itself.
These guys are getting bigger and bigger physically. Some of them like Brock Lesnor, Batista, and Triple H are reaching comic book superhero proportions (I’m not going to mention The Hurricane :rolleyes: ). I’m sure that’s some of the attraction for people.
I like watching well executed stunts. That these wrestlers can perform stunts live before 18,000 people and make it look convincing night after night is mind boggling sometimes.
The storylines aren’t so complicated that you can’t pick up watching it after after a few months hiatus and be able to figure out who hates who. I wish, however, that they hadn’t split into two brands. We don’t get Smackdown so sometimes it’s difficult to figure out some of the references made on Raw (is Velocity yet a third brand?) I like Confidential as you get a lot of background info on some of the guys. The pieces they did on Davy Boy Smith and Spike Dudley recently were pretty good. I’m sure they slant the stories so WWE and McMahon don’t appear in too bad of a light. And I really wish they would at least publicly state why a wrestler no longer appears on the show. Road Dogg used to be my favorite and there was never any mention about why he was let go. And where’s Kane these days?
I’ll admit that I enjoy watching the UFC shows from time to time. Their matches are more realistic and the fighters actually compete against each other. But they really lack the pizazz of a WWE match and the combatants don’t have nearly the presence of Duane Johnson and Mark Calloway. Eh, maybe McMahon & company have spoiled me.
And Vince, if you’re listening please don’t let Flair and Hogan back into the ring. Get Sid Vicious and Goldberg in there instead. And you stay out of the ring as well. You’re a billionaire fer chrissakes!
I watch Smackdown every Thursday & catch RAW every couple to three weeks.
Pro wrestling has aspects of soap opera & sitcom in the story lines, aspects of gladiatorial combat & circus in the matches and a wonderful pageantry to it to. It is, like Horseflesh says, easy to miss it for a few months & figure out what happened while I was gone.
I like the stunts, the characters, the improbable silliness of the whole spectacle. The atletic talent of a 230-lb man like Billy Kidman or Rob Van Dam jumpimg off a rope suspended 3 feet off the floor & doing a full gainer before landing on his opponent is really impressive. Or a 350-lb man like Rakishi taking a clothesline & doing a 450-degree backflip with a twist before hitting the mat is pretty impressive.
It’s really cool to see women who look like fitness/swimsuit models doing the high-flying top rope moves too :).
There have actually been several threads on pro wrestling on the boards already, if you do a search of all the fora you’ll find them.
Horseflesh, WWE has been much more forthcoming in recent years about what happens to wrestlers not on the roster. It may get a quick mention on the show, but their website often gives details. While you may not get 100% of the story from the website, it is no longer simply a place where they’ll tell the storyline. They step outside of character there.
Road Dogg had/has substance abuse and familial problems to the extent that he could not perform at a level expected of him. Eddie Guerrero was out for awhile with the same problem, and recently Scott Hall was let go for similar reasons.
Kane is nearly back from a pretty bad injury (bicep, I believe). Other notables out on injury are Rhyno and Lyta (neck), Kevin Nash (hamstring in his first match back from bicep injury), and HHH (elbow).
I was saddened to hear that in the past year, Wahoo McDaniels, Johnny Valentine, and Swede Hanson joined the great “Battle Royal in the Sky.” At least they’ll have Gordon Solie calling the match.
I’ve seen The Fabulous Moolah twice in the past six months. (She and I frequent the same steakhouses.)
What I’ve noticed lately, though, as I’ve looked around on the Net, is that such a large number of rasslers have come from Canada. Don’t know the reason. . .
I was watching an episode of “Hawaii Five-O” recently and saw that one of the names in the credits was “Johnny Walker.” That was a rassler who also rassled under the name of “Mr. Wrestling II” in the Georgia area in the 1970s. He did indeed retire to Hawaii, so I wondered if that might have been the same person. His voice was unmistakable, but (after re-watching the episode) I did not see his scene or character at all in the episode, so it might have been cut for syndication. (Quite possible, since it was the very last one listed.)
