I’m always wondering why Synchronized Swimming is considered a legitimate sport, and Professional Wrestling isn’t. The differences are in the announcing and the judging. In SS the announcers relate all the details of how the swimmers synchronize with each other, while in PW the announcers present a fictional story of the events in the ring. The SS swimming judges, well I’m not sure what they do, but in PW the judging is based on how many asses a wrestler puts in seats (or pay-per-view buys these days). But it’s basically the same thing, choreographed athletics for entertainment.
I grew up in Memphis. So to me the greatest wrestler ever was “The King” Jerry Lawler.
I was into wrestling as a kid. Mid South and Bill Watts. We also got the matches from Dallas with theVon Erichs. I figured out it was staged when they started advertising local matches around the state. Even at 11, I understood 2 guys couldn’t beat the crap out of each other six nights a week. No human on earth could take that much punishment. I kept watching anyhow.
Mid South (in the 70’s) tried to make it more realistic. A lot of the matches were straight wrestling with just some hair pulling or punches at the very end of the match. They’d usually have one feud match where the guys came out swinging punches.
I quit watching about 1985. The matches got too silly and cartoonish. There was a limit to how far I’d suspend disbelief. I also didn’t like the exaggerated soap opera story lines. Feuds starting because some guy got his woman stole. Some of the story lines weren’t family safe anymore.
That’s probably accurate nowadays, but a lot of the old school workers (I’m thinking specifically of Ric Flair) took pride in the fact that their matches were NOT choreographed. They were improvised on the spot. A travelling champion like Flair might not even have MET his opponent until the day of the match.
I prefer the term “worked”, which is the jargon specific to pro wrestling. YMMV.
It’s a zombie!
Anyway, if choreographed doesn’t work, there’s always predetermined. Worked is good, but only if you’re talking to someone who knows the lingo. For an outsider, that’s gonna be meaningless.
And I think Flair is one of the guys who actually prefers to plan the whole thing out ahead of time, so he might not be your best example for choreographed not being the right term. Your point’s still quite valid, tho.
I don’t know why, but it never really dawned on me that the results were fixed. I knew the drama was all fake, and I knew the moves were “fake”, but I thought they improvised them, and somehow waited until the other person was tired out or something.
Then again, I never found it remotely interesting, and never watch. I only hear about it.
Randy Savage was a big exception to this. Even before matches started becoming choreographed spot-fests, the Macho Man was working out his matches in fine detail. For those who remember his classic with Steamboat (my favorite all time match, followed by Steamboat/Flair best of 3 falls), every false finished was planned out in advance and Steamboat had to memorize them all (something he laughs about in interviews).
Yeah, the ends were pre-determined, but they had to “work” their way thru to the end, so you had “rest holds,” like arm bars and head locks which a) gave them a rest, and b) gave them a minute to think of the next move.
And occasionally, some upstart trying to make a name for himself would try to get cute. Here’s Jim Cornette talking about some hapless yo-yo who decided to go off script. I’ve broken the link because it contains some pretty foul language.
I guess my question should go here, instead of here, although I think it could fit there too.
I grew up in the early 70s watching Mid-Atlantic wrestling (Ivan Koloff, Paul Jones, Ken Patera), then saw Mid-South (Lawler, et al) in the late 70s. By the 80s, I’d fallen away from it, and now occasionally watch wrestling more for old time’s sake and to see the difference between then and now.
That out of the way, I’ve known it’s predetermined since I was at least 12, and now when I watch it, I can’t figure out just how they fake some of it. IOW, it’s kind of like a stage magic show: I know it’s not “real,” but I can’t guess the trick. For instance, I was watching TNA last night, and one guy put a ladder on another guy’s arm, and smashed the ladder with a chair. How was it faked, so the “victim” didn’t get his arm crushed? (I’ve seen similar, where one guy’s head was in a folding chair, and another guy jumped on the chair – the chair’s acting as a lever, ostensibly crushing the victim’s windpipe, but that’s not really the case, much as it appears to be on TV.)
Another time, I saw one guy whip another guy into the corner–no big deal there of course–the “victim” then sat down with his back to the turnbuckles, and the whipper then ran and jumped into the victim’s chest. Physics (and anatomy) tell me that the victim’s chest should not be able to take that much mass, but seconds later, the victim is up and hitting the other guy like nothing happened.
For a third example, which is similar to #2 right above, the “victim” was lying prone on the ground. The other guy literally jumped from the ring apron onto the victim’s chest, then bounced off. It wasn’t like he broke his jump by putting most of his weight next to the victim (maybe he did–camera angles, etc), but assuming it wasn’t tricked with angles, how the hell can these guys take that kind of punishment and not even show a bruise, much less end up with crushed ribcages? Sure, they’re bigger and stronger than I am, but there’s a point where even the biggest ribcage will buckle under the pressure. Is it just that these guys can really take it, or, as I believe, it’s faked to look like the guy’s chest is being jumped on by a 300 lb behemoth?
And not to drag this post on longer than necessary, what kind of person becomes a wrestler? I mean, okay, it’s fake, choreographed, predetermined, etc, but aren’t they still hitting each other in the head with chairs? Or are chair shots faked too? If they’re not fake, and they’re really getting hit as hard as it seems, what kind of person says, “Sure, I’ll let you hit me in the head with a chair.” (Or, “Sure, I’ll let you hit me in the nuts as hard as you can.”) On the other side, what sort of sadist would willingly hit another human being in the head with a chair? I can see movie stuntmen doing what they do, but they don’t really hit each other (as often).
It just seems to me that pro wrestling is a real S&M game, even going beyond the image/scripted finish/storyline (the scene in the movie The Wrestler comes to mind, when the guy working with Randy the Ram used real staples in his body and head (real in the movie’s storyline, and not just for fan’s entertainment)).
The more deeply I think about it, the more bizarre it becomes, and farther beyond the simple “good guy vs bad guy” it was when I was a kid. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it with the S&M angle, and they’re not any different than kids wanting to play football (which as John Madden described it, football’s not a contact sport, it’s a collision sport).
But when I found out about backyard wrestling, and saw footage of kids hitting each other over the head with flourescent bulbs, and jumping off house roofs onto mattresses, then I couldn’t help but think there’s a bit more S&M involved with the participants than when Dick the Bulldog or Ox Baker was around, even if they never broke kayfabe.
With the chairs, they’re not as hard as you would think and your head’s not as soft as you think. You can push on the seat of a folding chair and see it flex. Your head is pretty tough on the flatter part on top. Swing the chair right and it all comes together nicely.
I’m not sure how they stomp each other like that, but for slaps, a lot of the time it’s a slap. Check out the Undertaker’s chest after Shawn Michaels kept slapping it during one of the last 2 Wrestlemanias. It was beat red through the whole match after that.
I can’t see how hitting a ladder with a chair would hurt that bad. In fact, if it happened how I imagined after your description, the ladder actually blocked the chair so it didn’t hurt. Some of it looks like it hurts, but some of it really does.
Jim Cornette has some hilarious interviews on You Tube, most are NWS due to language. The Dairy Queen drive-thru is particularly funny.
You’re probably right about the chairs, and naturally experience with folding chairs (sitting on them, not getting clunked on the noggin) tells me they’re flexible (moreso than a skull at least), so I can accept the “Wow! That looks like it hurts like hell!” explanation.
And Cornette’s hilarious. I’ve heard some of his commentary, and saw the Dairy Queen bit. He’s one who pulls no punches, certainly not when it comes to his opinion.
The promotion with Lawler was based out of Memphis, TN. Among fans of the kayfabe era, it’s usually referred to as Memphis or CWA. “Mid-South” refers to the Bill Watts promotion in Louisiana, Mississippi, with some shows in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Adding to the confusion is that Memphis as a city is often referred to as “the Mid-South area”, and Memphis as a wrestling promotion had a Southern Heavyweight Title that was listed in the Apter magazines as the “Mid-Southern Heavyweight Title”.
Bolding mine. I wasn’t aware of that, or didn’t remember it. I always thought of the Memphis (Lawler) promotion area as “Mid-South” because they wrestled in the Mid-South Coliseum. Mid-South Coliseum - Wikipedia
But you’re right, now that I think of it. “Yellow [sic] again everybody, Lance Russell and Dave Brown right along ringside…” with CWA hanging on the curtains behind them. I watched that every Saturday around 1978 or so.
What you are watching on TV and thinking might be trick shots are actually being done live in front of an audience, 99% of the time without a second take. And I wonder about some of the moves too (like the one you mentioned, even when the jumper is “only” 180#).
Good news is that most outfits are reducing the amount of chairshots to the head. I think WWE has totally eliminated them. My understanding is that they are using the cheapest chairs they can find (though still real chairs) and that it matters which way you hit someone (top of the seat facing the head, not the bottom of the seat).
Cornette pulls no punches, but that’s also why he isn’t working for the big dog (WWE) or even the little dog (TNA). sigh I miss him, his tennis racket, and the Midnight Express (my favorites were Sweet Stan Lane and Beautiful Bobby Eaton).
For many, many years–even before Benoit and recent concussion research–the WWE policy was that you were always allowed to protect yourself from a headshot–you would not be punished for bringing your arms up and taking the blow there, then acting like it hit your head.
Several wrestlers, including Benoit and Foley, did not do so because they felt it looked too fake. Foley seems to have come out of it with his brain intact, Benoit not so much.
It was probably in ECW, but once in awhile I would see a chair shot that would rip the seat from the chair.
I watched, in person, Dick The Bruiser, Leeping Larry Chene, Killer Kowolski, Vern Gangne, Haystack Calhoun, Bobo Brazil, etc and it was real when these guys were wrestling. Real blood on the mat too.
I can remember when Dick the Bruiser actually got arrested for fighting Alex Karras(or somebody) out of the ring
Well, the blood was real blood–drawn by the “victim” cutting his forehead with a razor blade most of the time.
The matches were never “on the level” despite Verne’s claims to the contrary. The guys in the ring were cooperating with each other to perform an entertaining match with a predetermined outcome, not trying to defeat each other.