I no longer have to defend watching wrestling.

[The Curmudgeon]

People look at me, as a grown man who still watches six hours of wrestling a week (WWE only, TNA is appalling), alongside an independent chat show ABOUT wrestling every week, as if I have some mental condition. That's something their kids watch! That's something they themselves stopped watching when they were 10 and they realised it was all fake! It's low-brow entertainment for hicks and yokels! What the FUCK am I watching THAT for?

And I go into the conversation I always have. Yes, it's fake, so is every other TV show on the planet unless you're watching a nature documentary. Yes, it's aimed at children, but then so is Star Wars. So is Doctor Who. So are comic books. Like those, their creators are/were smart enough to know that entertainment built towards ALL age groups are always so God-damned popular. You watch it as a kid, there's enough in there to keep you coming back as an adult, you then have kids and they get into it... the circle of life continues.

Anyway, I'm no longer going to have this conversation. I'm simply going to instruct them to watch this video;

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSe1maLmLUI

Thank you, Max Landis. I have no idea who the little bitchy girl is who interrupted (amazingly talented) pro wrestler Dolph Ziggler, but forget that part. This is my new mantra.

[trashcanman]

The Muppets. Huh. Very interesting connection there. But yeah, that is a great interview/vid and I'm on record as saying that while I no longer watch pro-wrestling, I've always respected the performers as awesome entertainers/stuntmen. I think that to take that next step into universal mainstream acceptance, the WWE just needs to hire a higher caliber of writers. The big twists don;t really seem to be foreshadowed properly and the switching of allegiances is handled worse than the Star Wars prequels. In my experience, it was literally one day a wrestler (let's say Tugboat) is a good guy and best friends/tag team partners with another hero (Hulk Hogan). They battle the forces of evil (say, Earthquake) together, are just awesome dudes, and are beloved by fans. Then suddenly one day Tugboat just comes out and teams up with Earthquake to beat the ever-loving shit out of Hogan while all the children cry and all the adults scream and boo in outrage. Next week, Tugboat is a complete bastard now named Typhoon and he is best friends with Earthquake -the guy he's been fighting since forever- and now they are tag team partners just because. Good character development doesn't work that way. A twist like that is shocking at first, but the more thought you put into it, the more halfassed, exploitative, and lazy it seems. I don't know if it's improved since then (I'd say no from what I've heard), but the 20th time or so they pull that shit it gets boring on top of trite and shallow. There's room for WWE to become more highbrow and nuanced with it's storytelling, but I wonder if they'd sacrifice that slack-jawed yokel demographic in doing so. They mentioned Game of Thrones. Compare the character arcs in that show to what you see on Raw and Smackdown. When a character does something villainous, it's almost always for a reason, such as Cersie protecting her children's lives, or Jamie protecting his sister's, or Cat's resentment towards Jon Snow as a black mark of infidelity on her otherwise perfect marriage. With the exception of characters who are disposed to mental illness there is always a selfish reason for the villains to do what they do. In wrestling, I never really saw that. You were either an angelic avatar of good who never does any wrong, or you are a complete son of a bitch who hates everything and everyone. No middle ground, and that makes the writing even more unrealistic than the actual fights.

[The Curmudgeon]

Damn, Tugboat turning into Typhoon? You really haven't watched wrestling in a while.

I get what you're saying about better writers and storylines, and in a sense that HAS been happening lately, with interwoven plots and storyline arcs that involve several people, but what it boils down to is two things; performer and audience.

1. A huge percentage of your audience are kids and, well, morons. That's a fact in wrestling. And these storylines have to revolve around a live audience who, if they don't understand it will sit on their hands in silence, and that is pretty much death in pro wrestling. A TV show like, say, Game of Thrones, has the advantage of having a storyline that you can chew over for the next week until the next episode until you really "get it." Wrestling can't have that, or you have a 75% confused audience who aren't going to go online and discuss it with fellow nerds that night, they're just going to think it sucked and switch off.

2. The performer. As good as some are at cutting live interviews and putting across the story in a match (CM Punk and the Rock are two of the best examples), let's face it - these guys aren't traditional actors, so even with amazing writers you've still got some 350 pound monster trying to deliver the lines.

I won't bore you with the details, but there's an amazing storyline going on right now that's had some of the best performances and writing, with intriguing plot twists and some truly memorable moments, all performed by guys who can deliver the lines and make it sound authentic, but it doesn't always work out that way. There was a great, tongue-in-cheek storyline a year or so ago that was obviously WWE attempting a horror movie, but one of the main guys involved was SO bad at acting the whole thing just fell flat.

I'm going to show you a clip now of the thing the guy in the video was talking about that was an example of when things go well in wrestling, their as good as most TV shows. This is the Nexus, a group that was formed off the back of WWE's one time reality show project NXT. NXT was a TV show that had six rookie wrestlers (although some had been wrestling for years on the independant scene) try and win a contract in WWE. There were wrestling matches, but the majority of the show was face-palm worthy stuff; obstacle courses, telling jokes to a live crowd, wrestling trivia knowledge.. all in the talent show format of "vote to save your favourite!" It's now changed to a TV show that only has up and coming wrestlers without the stupid reality show format, but after the "first season" British bad guy Wade Barrett won the competition, and the rest of the rookies were never to be seen again.. or so we thought.

Note: before watching this, keep in mind that one guy was actually legit suspended after parent groups complained it was too extreme and severe (he's the guy who spits on John Cena AND chokes out the announcer with his own tie). This was - hands down - one of THE best and most shocking moments I've ever seen. Agreed some of the "twists" in wrestling you can see coming from a mile away. No-one saw this coming.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVSUelir4Z0

The commentators being taken out? Good AND bad guys attacked? The ring being torn apart? The black guy with the Mortal Kombat/rape mask thing coming out from the crowd? Ring announcers and sound guys being punched out? Like, O M fucking G. It's moments like that that keep me as a fan.

[trashcanman]

Yeah, I haven't watched wrestling since before high school so it's been a couple decades, but constant stuff like that Typhoon storyline and the like that worked when I was little but got lamer as I aged is why I stopped watching after a point and that legendary hokeyness is likely why people view wrestling as lowbrow. The idea of a sneak attack from the reality show contestants coming from the crowd and assaulting the WWE itself is pretty cool. I'll take your word that the writing and performances have improved all around.