BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
(FOUR) THE FAN REPRESENTATION
I love wrestling fans. Like a lot of fan communities they speak their own language. We know too much about what we like and we keep absorbing more. It’s always interesting to see people wear wrestling shirts in public. Sadly, most people who wear wrestling shirts in public are the stereotypes who make everyone else who appreciates wrestling look bad. Not all wrestling fans are obnoxious, immature, or gross. Pretty much all of us know it’s “fake and scripted.” The “It’s still real to me, dammit” guy does not represent the entire fan base of professional wrestling.
(THREE) OVERZEALOUS CHANTS
I used to love chants. They were pretty simple until ECW started getting creative and vulgar with them. The chants like “you fucked up!” or “she’s a crack whore” were hilarious at times. Eventually it got annoying, like most things. In this case, I started getting annoyed with ECW when every match had the opening of random fast paced chain wrestling ALWAYS ending in “a fight pose off”. The crowd then automatically claps like monkeys. As ROH and TNA fans grew up the chants lost their charm. Above average spots get “this is awesome” chants. Old timers coming back for a glory match get “you still got it” chants”. It goes on and on.
(TWO) STEREOTYPES
If you’re black you have to act like you’re from “the streets”, a Jamaican, or like a parody of an obnoxious early 90’s off-field NFL player. If you’re Hispanic, you have to wear a mask, be from “the streets”, or be like Scarface. English folks have to be smug brawling wrestlers. It doesn’t just end with race or origin. There is rarely any stretch on the characters. If you have a clown, he’s just like other clowns. If you have a vampire, he’s like the others. The FCW character names these days are combinations of celebrity names and famous athletes. Other companies will at least try, but the WWE doesn’t seem to ever put twists on these characters.
(ONE) THE ILLOGICAL
I know the idea of professional wrestling in general is a bit illogical. There are just little things that get a little exhausting. Wrestling 101 says that a small guy should never be able to overpower the big guy and throw them to the ropes. Basically, anything Rey Mysterio does to Big Show. I always had a problem understanding how someone could jump up and drop kick someone and it only hurts the person giving the move IF the victim moves. The fall is a fall, does kicking someone in between really matter? What about referees always getting knocked out and waking back up right before the show is supposed to end? There are a million of these plot devices that we, as wrestling fans, just accept. It just looks a little silly and makes it harder to believe what’s already hard to believe.
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