He was weak as a heel. He drew a little heat, but he had the same problem from when he was a face, he didn’t put asses in seats. He was a great athlete and technical wrestler but he didn’t have natural skills as a showman. It was fine for the old style wrestling when he was the WWWF champion. But when he returned they were looking for someone to return to the heyday of Hogan and Wrestlemania and Backlund just couldn’t do it.
I see me and Earl Snake Hips Tucker need to talk…
I was an indy worker out here in Hawaii until I got injured a few years back.
Anyway as it’s been stated, Professional Wrestling in its early days started as a “Carnie” attraction and even some of the backstage lingo,like worker,shooter,ect. still carries on from those days.
However some of the interview style antics are apparently from time immortal. I read in a book about the history of professional wrestling that there was a rant from a Greek “Pankration” athlete (an early form of MMA, think UFC fights done in the buff) that sounded almost like something Ric Flair or The Rock woud say nowadays.Ill see if I can find the cite…
Aloha Aloha. This threadbroaches on the subject of trash talk rants. It is a very ancient art.
Thank you TriPolar for the ancient rant link.
I guess depends on the person. Heel Bob Backlund did waaaaay more for me than clean cut Romney-esqe Backlund. In particular his interview rants sold me. Forgot who he was going off about (possibily Bret Hart during their feud) but that was the very first time I ever heard someone say a person reminded them of the South End of A Northbound Horse 
Memories Fuzzy,but he won the World Title and Euro Title at one point (but different times) as Heel,yes? I know he lost the World Title in record fashion to Kevin Nash (then known as Disel)
when I began watching wrestling in Nashville in the late '60s with my dad, he very gently and carefully explained the scripted and ficticious nature of what I was watching. I was a very gullible kid and I will always be grateful that he explained it it a way that didn’t ruin my enjoyment of Toyo Yammaoto, Randy Macho Man Savage, the Undertakers. and many other wrestlers.
I mean protect in the professional sense, Andre was booked as undefeated so he had to win and the quicker the better. You can see that he tries to pick Wepner up and throw him out of the ring three times before it actually happened. Wepner kept grabbing the ropes, though and Andre could not get the leverage until he decided to headbutt him first.
My favorite part of the video is right after the fight one of Wepner’s cornermen tries to hit Andre. It is one thing for a 6’6" professional fighter gets in the ring with Andre but a regular size guy trying to pick a fight with one of the largest and strongest men in the world was crazy.
That was definitely funny. Give the guy credit for guts, and extra credit for stupidity.
And, to some extent, using the word “fake” implies deceit or fraud. Lots and lots of people enjoy reading novels about fantastic or not-so-fantastic circumstances, knowing all along that the guy they are reading about isn’t actually a highly-paid government operative stealing secrets from hostile nations while spending time in bed with lots of lovely local girls. Nobody (or very few people) claim that novels are deceitful or that Random House and Penguin Books are committing fraud by selling books that describe fictitious people and fictitious scenarios.
Are there actually a significant number of intelligent adult people today who believe that Professional Wrestling is actually a competitive sport?
Actually it is an indirect competition between the wrestlers and between wrestling organizations. The wrestling isn’t what’s fake, it’s the storyline that is fake.
Also, claiming that wrestling is a real one on one competition sport is part of the game. When you find someone calling wrestling fake, they usually don’t watch it all and have no idea what’s going on. I offer to demonstrate some wrestling holds on them. Then they start claiming it’s fake from a distance.
Back to the original question…I think it was the popularity of the Internet that made the wrestling organizations start to reveal that wrestling storylines maybe weren’t as “real” as they had previously let on. It was now too easy for “the truth” about professional wrestling to become widespread, especially when the results of every “house show” were available worldwide within hours of the event taking place.
No, and there haven’t been for many years.
Well thing is, then they caught up with the times and started using the internet to fuel storylines, having “wars” on Twitter and what not. And sometimes, realities blur…for example it’s been said John Cema and The Rock legitimitely dislike each other, maybe at the level of Obama/Romney dislikeness lol.
They have also used “real life” storylines and played them out in the ring. One of the most famous of art imitating reality and coming back to bite was Kevin Sullivan. He was a booker and storyline writer for WCW,and he booked an angle where his manager (and real life wife) Nancy “Woman” Sullivan was having an affair with another wrestler…Chris Benoit…he wanted it the on screen affair absolutely to “look” authentic, so he began telling them to take the same airplane,sit next to each other, book the same hotel & room,eat out together,ect. Turns out he ended up scripting his own divorce :o Because sure enough,she ended up cheating on him for REAL with Chris and thus their on TV feud became actual.
And of course we know what happened roughly 10 years later after that…
But they weren’t the first nor the last. Edge & Matt Hardy went though a similar situation, and the internet picked up on the story first (about how Lita cheated on Matt with Edge and Matt was subsequently fired for a time)
Eh not so soon. Japan and a few other countries still treat it and respect it as a competitive sport, to the point where results are in the Newspaper (or used to be anyway). I might be wrong (been out of the business for a while) but I belive there it is still seen as “real”..and Japanese wrestling is a different animal al together anyway. The wrestling is known as “strong style” which is FULL contact hits & joint locks despite a “scripted” victory/loss
The internet has made the details available to everybody. But the big change came when Vince McMahon publicly announced that his wrestling would now be called “Sports Entertainment”. Among other reasons he wanted to get out from under the thumb of state athletic commissions. He readily admitted that wrestling had predetermined outcomes, and even expressed disbelief that wrestling promoters expected the audience to believe the storylines were true. He wasn’t the first either. Jack Pfeferwas a wrestling promoter who long ago revealed the inner workings of wrestling. He knew that the audience was interested in the entertainment aspect of wrestling. Since he was associated with Vince Sr. it’s likely that Vince Jr. knew him and followed his lead.
While I agree that people calling wrestling fake generally aren’t interested in a genuine dialogue, plenty of the in-ring action is as fake as the storylines and cannot be performed without full cooperation by both parties.
How does full cooperation make it fake? Is synchronized swimming fake?
Do pairs of wrestling opponents win prizes at the end of the night for the best dance? ETA: Actually if they did, with real judges, then it would be just as much of a sport as a lot of other popularity-contest sports.
Yes. They get paid and get to keep their jobs. The fake stuff is what the announcers are saying. The audience is the judge in these events. It’s not a highly regimented system as judging is in other sports, but as you point out, that’s the only thing that makes it different from other judged competitions.
If you dance well a lot you get to be the champ.