smashes Hail Ants on the head with a chair
Good god, you have to be joking. Do you have any idea of the kind of athleticism professional wrestling requires?
When did you do any mocking or be sarcastic? You said not to underestimate the american public, assumed wrestling fas wouldn’t know the difference between sumo wrestling and professional wrestling, got all disjointed when I made a comment directed at the OP in a response to you, and made it quite clear that you don’t like wrestling.
Not once have I seen you say anything about why wrestling is so popular after all these years. You’ve shown your lack of knowledge about current events and your clear stupidity when it comes to the athleticism of today’s professional wrestlers. If you think it is simply pantamime, you truly are as clueless as you appear.
If you aren’t going to contribute something other than your uneducated and mis-informed thoughts on professional wrestling, shut the fuck up already. No one said you had to like it, the OP asked for reasons for its popularity.
To be honest I have watched wrestling for as long as I can remember … my MOTHER took me to shows almost everyweek here in town … the wonderful Mid-South Wrestling… the greats like HackSaw jim dugan, superstar bill dundee, The ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS, midnight express, and so on! Now a days i still watch it … they might be “grown men in tights” but DAMN some of them LOOK DAMN GOOD !!! I go and see shows when they are in town and I was even at a RAW not too long ago and even saw myself on TV !!! thats cool. but it is now called Sports Entertainment … you tell me if that title implies that they claim to be better than a football or baseball player … some ball games are BORING and well GOLF enough said ! Nascar pure rush !! Wrestling is still around because you can count on wrestling for true ENTERTAINMENT !!!
Has anyone else gotten to go into the ring and try out a few moves? They aren’t easy, let me tell you. 
Nor are some of them particularly safe. There’s always a chance that the person smashing you over the head with a steel chair won’t do it properly and will cause you to get several stitches in your head. (Which is what happened to my brother when he did some small-time pro-wrestling.)
What pro-wrestlers do really is difficult, and is certainly sometimes dangerous. It’s basically a play with poor dialogue but lots of great coreographed action and fascinatingly over-the-top characters. Nobody says, “Why do people go to plays? They aren’t even real!”
Right, which explains why 93,000 people were in the Pontiac Silverdome on a Sunday night in March of 1987 to see the Lions- oh wait, that’s during the off-season, isn’t it? Hm … must have been for WrestleMania 3, with Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant in the main event. And the 70,000 people in the Toronto Skydome this past March - was that for the Blue Jays? No - it was for WrestleMania X-8. Pretty much shoots the whole theory right there, wouldn’t you say?
I’m not trying to knock ‘real’ sports in any way - I absolutely respect athletes, because they are making the most of their God-given abilities. But there is no ‘legitimate’ athlete that puts his body on the line night in and night out the way professional wrestlers do. Even minor-league baseball players, AFAIK, have a team bus to transport them from place to place - paid for by the team itself. Minor-league wrestlers have to transport themselves from show to show, and more often than not they doing more driving than performing.
blowero, in every post you’ve made, you have not once mentioned the sacrifices and the athleticism of these performers. You refer to them as “hack wannabe actors doing a fake wrestling pantamime.” (sic) So what about stuntmen? They risk injury every time they work, they appear in movies, and they play a role - are they, too, “hack wannabe actors”? :rolleyes:
I agree totally, and the same for television, movies, and popular fiction.
It’s a cliché, but only because it’s true: if you don’t want to watch it, change the channel.
-Dirty
P.S.: Trish Stratus is 10 times sexier than any Dallas Cowboys cheerleader! 
Why is professional wrestling still popular?
Because the morons of America have bred and multiplied, which is probably another good reason for people needing to get a license to breed.
You think pro wrestling is real, and call me clueless. That’s priceless.
If you are trying to convince me that pro wrestling fans such as yourself are sophisticated and intelligent, you are failing miserably. It’s just a debate; try not to get so upset - you’ll live longer.
No, he thinks that the dangers that they put themselves through for the simnple reason of entertaining a crowd are very real, even though the wrestling “contest” is fake.
Are yopu actually reading what is on your computer screen or are you hallucinating up words that you want to be there?
I don’t feel the need to convince anyone of anything and it’s obvious you have no reading comprehension skills so anything I say you wouldn’t grasp anyway. It is a debate, the only thing that upsets me is that you have yet to contribute anything meanigful.
Pro wrestling is real? I said time and again it’s both entertainment and that the outcomes are scripted. What is real is their athleticism and the risks they take.
If they are just pantomime, care to explain the following list of injuries suffered by best selling author and wrestling god Mick Foley:
- Six concussions from 1986 to 1998
- One broken jaw in 1986
- Two broken noses in 1993
- One broken cheekbone in 1998
- Lost four front teeth from 1989 to 1998
- Two-thirds of his ear ripped off in 1993 (Against Vader in Germany)
- A separated shoulder in 1990
- A fractured left shoulder in 1989
- A dislocated shoulder in 1998
- Second degree burn on his shoulder in 1995 (In the King of the Death Match in Japan)
- Second degree burns on his arm in 1995 (In the King of the Death Match in Japan)
- 54 stitches on his left arm in 1995 (In the King of the Death Match in Japan)
- A broken right wrist in 1989
- Bone chips in his right elbow in 1996
- Six broken ribs from 1991 to 1998
- A torn abdominal in 1992
- A torn ACL
- A broken toe in 1991
- A total of over 300 stitches in his arms, head, eyebrows, hands, ears, shin, cheek and lip
- Thousands of thumb tack holes
I think that maybe another reason why it’s so popular. The risks they take are incredible, it’s just amazing to see people put themselves through so much just to entertain a crowd and hear people chant their name.
I had hoped someone more experienced would have posted this by now, but this is not the place for name-calling and personal attacks.
Although no fan of pro-wrestling, the one time I saw it “live” was very entertaining. Larger than life men beating each other up, good vs evil, revenge, injustice, shifting alliances, no ambiguity, unpredictable twists and turns, a very amped-up fan base: what more do you want? That’s entertainment to many folks.
Although the outcome, length, and finishing move of each match is pre-determined, everything else that the wrestlers do during each match is improvised. These guys are very talented and work very long and hard at creating a convincing appearance of violence without incapacitating themselves and one another.
It has been pointed out very well that professional wrestlers are often injured and sometimes disabled as a consequence of their craft.
Pro wrestling follows a form like Symphony, opera, buddy movies, sit-coms, soap operas, action/adventure films, westerns, almost all pop music genres, etc. Often an experienced viewer can spot the next move, the next part of the pattern in any of these art forms. I don’t hear anyone calling opera, ballet, or symphony fans stupid for enjoying their art form.
Frankly, I enjoy WWE and a lot of smaller-league pro wrestling franchises because I can identify the patterns that have been used since the 50’s. I also love the new elements that get added to the patterns. I admire the strength, stamina and sheer athletic prowess displayed by the wrestlers. I like that the characters are becoming more complex. I like characters changing from babyface to heel and back again. I like the women of WWE http://wwedivas.com.
If anyone wants to look down on me for that, I don’t care. It’s not like I’m trying to get into anybody’s pants here.
I don’t watch wrestling, but as long as we’re generalizing I think I’ll say that the only reason people are frothing at the mouth about how only stupid hicks like wrestling is because these whiners were picked on by the wrestling jocks in high school.
By the way, Tenebras, the name Hail Ants is no doubt a reference to a Simpsons episode, specifically the one in which Homer becomes an astronaut. An antfarm on the shuttle breaks, and when the News starts taping, an ant is near the camera, leading the anchor to logically conclude that the shuttle has been taken over by giant alien ants.
I don’t know a damned thing about wrestling, pro or otherwise, but I know my James Bond Movies. If this is referring to the Bond series, there are a couple of errors here:
-
Oddjob appeared in Goldfinger, not Dr. No
-
Oddjob was played by Harold Sakata, whose name is also listed as Tosh Togo. I’ve seen him in other movies, and in the 1960s he appeared (approximately as Oddjob) in a series of commercials for Vicks44 cough syrup. I don’t know who Toru Tanaka is, unless this guy has three names.
Come on, you know Mick Foley got those injuries in overseas “death match” wrestling, which is a sport (although a bloody and gruesome one). This thread is about American pro-wrestling, which is relatively safe, and utterly scripted.
UnuMondo
I stand corrected. I confused Harold Sakata with Toru Tanaka and even got the movie wrong. For aiding and abetting ignorance, I will suspend my posting privileges for the next 45 minutes.
The injuries suffered in the death matches were listed. He only worked for the IWA/FMW (death matches) in 1995-96. He worked in the WCW from 1990-94, in ECW in 94-95 and started working for the WWF starting in April of 96. Any injury listed before and after 95 was good ole American Professional wrestling.
As for being scripted, as mentioned before, the ending and certain high risk/finishing moves are scripted. The rest is mostly improvised. The day of a whole match being scripted from beginning to end stopped years ago.
Relatively safe? Tell that to the above mentioned Mick Foley or try Darren Drosdov or Owen Hart.
My understanding is that most of the TV matches are heavily scripted, the PPV’s are moderately scripted (who hits what signature move when only), and house shows (untelevised shows) are lightly scripted (you win by ___, entertain them for 15 minutes). Not being a professional wrestler, I’m going only on the many interviews and commentary (both shoot [real] and kayfabe [in character]) I’ve read, seen and/or heard in the many years I’ve been following the sport entertainment.
Gilligan’s Island and Shakespeare’s plays both have plots, but the comparison pretty much ends there.:rolleyes:
BTW - now I fully expect to hear from all the Gilligan’s Island fans who are offended by my statement, as well as those who don’t understand what an analogy is.
Call pro wrestling fixed, rigged, staged, or whatever else but to call it ‘fake’ belittles the injuries and sacrifices these ATHELETES have made to entertain us. Yes, pro wrestling is choreographed but that doesn’t mean getting slammed on the mat hurts any less.
Wow, that’s a new one. :rolleyes:
First, it’s generally not the work of a wise man to blindly categorize the followers of anything. Shows a lack of open mindedness.
Second, as with any hobby or interest, such as baseball, quilting, or fly fishing, there will be a wide range of people who enjoy it.
Third, on a personal note, I am a professional wrestling fan. I even write a column about it. I also happen to be one of the top fraud analysts at a major bank. I might not be the typical, as you and so many others seem to think, wrestling fan.
But I am still a fan. To me, it’s entertainment. I know the outcomes of matches are scripted. I enjoy the athleticism of the sport. Kurt Angle, a Olympic gold medalist and current WWE star, has been quoted repeatedly about how much harder professional wrestling is than amateur.
And besides, not everything in life has to be serious. We all need some fun.