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Kayfabe... what is it and when was it broken for you?


Petey

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I always knew it was predetermined, before I was a fan WWF's Wrestling USA show or whatever would come on USA Network on weekend mornings after Scooby Doo and the network's Cartoon Express and I vividly remember seeing Earthquake miss a dropkick by about 3 feet on a job guy that the job guy sold. Even after knowing and seeing that I still became a diehard fan a year or so later because I saw Undertaker and the Road Warriors and thought they were the coolest motherfuckers ever, especially the Roadies.

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with adults who still believe in the magic of professional wrestling. Not everyone can be jaded and snarky. On Twitter, when Triple H did his concussion angle against Curtis Axel that night people were legitimately concerned that something was wrong with him. Sometimes I wish I could completely get rid of my cynical attitude and just enjoy the shit I love so much.

 

Maybe a follow up question we should ask is "Why do you still watch professional wrestling?"

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I didn't watch wrestling as a kid; never saw it, never thought about it.  It was just "that fake crap" that I paid less than zero attention to.  The VERY few times I ever remember seeing a wrestling clip, the fakeness practically stood up and slapped me in the face: for my entire life, I've always had a "how could anyone ever believe this bullshit was a real fight?" attitude towards the whole thing.  (Not counting your average Ishikawa/Ikeda match, anyway.)  Even long before UFC taught us all what real pro fights really look like, it was incredibly obvious to me that these guys were just actors/stuntment with every single whiffed-punch-with-stomp they threw.  Shit, Garfield cartoons used to make a running joke out of wrestling being fake (including digs about the wrestlers memorizing scripts, long before that actually happened).  So I've never really understood how anyone but a really young kid could possibly believe this shit.  

 

 

HOWever:

 

 

THEY EXIST.  Adults.  REAL people who are REALLY old and REALLY think that wrestling is REALLY REAL.  (Or that everything before the finish is real, or that only the title matches are real, or that only certain wrestlers have real matches.)  I've met far, far too many of these morons and psychopaths at indy shows.  Most of the smarks think that idiots like that are hilarious and try to troll them into fanboy rages, but I always found such people to be incredibly creepy and wanted to avoid them at all costs.  

 

Time for me to repost my old RSPW bro Paul Herzog's experiences at a Dallas show where the Freebirds went heel many moons ago.

 

A story to illustrate the true level of the GWFMutants, one which does not exist anywhere else in the world (with the possible exception of SMW).  

 

There is a woman named Patsy who has been at the Sportatorium for a long time, since well into the days of the Von Erichs.  She has sold souvenirs for many of the wrestlers that have come down to Dallas.  She has sat down and seen tapes of feds from all over the worlds (at least she made it sound like she has, but I know a lot of people that try to do that...some of which even come with us on a regular basis).  She was selling souvies for the Freebirds last night, and has been infatuated with Michael Hayes for a long time.  When the 'Birds made their heel turn, she cried.  Long and hard.  She was heartbroken.  Where else could someone work for a fed for 12 years and still be a mark?

Where indeed...
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I was nine and the news story broke of Duggan and the Sheik busted together with coke, among other things. Why were they driving together? Was this a ploy by Slick to defame the much beloved Hacksaw? Were they trying to resolve their issues post WrestleMania 3? Nope, they just both liked cocaine.

 

I think I have found my new sig. I'll have to alter it a bit since I was 6 when Duggan and Sheik got busted together. My grandmother was the one that burst my bubble about wrestling being fake. It never stopped me from watching.

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I don't think there is anything wrong with adults who still believe in the magic of professional wrestling. 

Sure there is.  The true believers also tend to be the assholes who attack the wrestlers.  I know that many veterans take that sort of thing as a compliment, but in what other performance medium can you find such a similarly fucked-up situation?  You'll never hear an actor who plays a great Shakespearean villain bragging about how the audience was literally trying to kill him because he was such a believable Richard III.  

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I went to a friend of a friend's house to watch MITB the other week, place was packed. The guy I was sitting next to wasn't on the 'still real to me' level, but it was fascinating to me how he still reacted in a very legit and visceral way to what was going on.

 

Like, AJ heads to the ring during Dolph's match:

 

My brain: Oh! It's AJ. Well, she's gonna cost him the match somehow. I wish they weren't doing this, I like them as a trio, even if there is an odd heel/face dynamic. Well, here goes....

 

This guy: "Wait, what? What is... She shouldn't even be in the ring! GET HER OUT OF THE RING SHE'S JUST A VALET RIGHT NOW. What the hell is she even fucking thinking?! DAMN IT why is she such a spotlight hog?!"

 

It was awesome. Whole night was like that. Kayfabe is still alive and well in the way that this guy processes a thing that he knows, somewhere in his brain, his fake. 

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I think that the moment you fully understand that wrestling is fake and still love it is what divides people who 'know about wrestling some' and 'wrestling fans.' It's like the difference between kids that quit playing little league between coach pitch and kid pitch.

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There are times I wish I believed a bit more. I remember a few years back going to a friend's house to watch a PPV, I think the Survivor Series with Punk teaming with HHH & Shawn. There was another person there who had two small children (age 5 and 10) and all three bought everything hook, line and sinker. I was jealous.

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When I was in day camp when I was probably 7 or so, I told a counselor my favorite sport was pro wrestling. He told me it wasn't a sport because it was fake. When I told him he was wrong, he took my forearm a slapped it a few times so that it went red. He then told me if it was real the wrestlers would be red and bruised all the time. Later that day my parents confirmed.

Fuck that camp counselor.

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I went to a friend of a friend's house to watch MITB the other week, place was packed. The guy I was sitting next to wasn't on the 'still real to me' level, but it was fascinating to me how he still reacted in a very legit and visceral way to what was going on.

 

Like, AJ heads to the ring during Dolph's match:

 

My brain: Oh! It's AJ. Well, she's gonna cost him the match somehow. I wish they weren't doing this, I like them as a trio, even if there is an odd heel/face dynamic. Well, here goes....

 

This guy: "Wait, what? What is... She shouldn't even be in the ring! GET HER OUT OF THE RING SHE'S JUST A VALET RIGHT NOW. What the hell is she even fucking thinking?! DAMN IT why is she such a spotlight hog?!"

 

It was awesome. Whole night was like that. Kayfabe is still alive and well in the way that this guy processes a thing that he knows, somewhere in his brain, his fake. 

 

I like stories like these.  Sure we probably do know better and whatnot, but it makes watching the shows that much more fun when you watch with a fan like that.  For me, it helps to turn my brain off and just enjoy the show with them.  Watching with kids can be the same way, see them get into it and then you bask in their joy and you enjoy a parent kid moment

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A friend of mine isn't a wrestling fan but was blown away when I told her that the results were predetermined. She didn't understand why they had championships and stuff if it didn't mean anything. She was in college when I told her this. She went through like 18 years of her life thinking wrestling was 100% real.

 

When I worked at GameStop (circa 2005-2009) there was this one customer who would come in and chat about wrestling with me. He always seemed a little "off" but nothing super noteworthy. It was weird though because he would throw around insider terms but also believed that a lot of the angles/injuries were legitimate.

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There's a lot of different level of true-belief.  Plenty of the more credulous smarks out there tend to REALLY take serious the whole "respect da biz!" brainwashing and are even worse than any wrestler when it comes to defending the counterfeit corporeality of wrestling.  

 

When it's well done, it doesn't matter that wrestling's fake.  It's just like any other fictional entertainment medium: we want to know What Happens Next.  Or as Archie Bunker perfectly put it: "Maybe they know who's gonna win, but I don't!"  Last year I watched Wrestlemania with a total noob who'd never seen wrestling in his life, and even he was jumping at the nearfalls by the time we got to the Undertaker match.  It's just like watching any movie, or TV show, or play, or dance performance, or anything else; it's just got this bizarre historical component where, for some reason, people actually give a shit whether it's a legitimate athletic contest or not.  

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I know the exact moment actually. It was after Starrcade 1998, when Kevin Nash ended Goldberg's streak. I had not had internet for very long & it was still the days of dial-up. I went on-line to talk about the show, the first time it had ever dawned on me to talk about wrestling on-line. I can't remember the forum I was reading, WrestlingGames.com or something. But it changed everything starting with that evening. I was so confused as to why everyone was shitting on BOTH Goldberg & Nash. :lol:

 

I knew that wrestling wasn't "real" way before that, obviously but that was my first experience with the completely different "insider" perspective of it all, I guess. I have no idea what terminology to use as this all sounds ridiculous to me. After that show though, that's when I started learning a lot more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of wrestling & stuff. Up until then, it was just a TV show where I bought into the characters without questioning much else. I had been reading Wrestling Digest (lol) & getting into ECW when they first hit PPV so I think I was on that path anyway. Then I started getting Puro tapes & stuff & went from there.

 

Nowadays, I get more enjoyment from the behind-the-scenes stuff than I do the actual shows. Total 180.

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This is a genuinely impossible question for me to answer, because there was no clear cut point where I went from total belief in it to none at all. The first time I ever saw wrestling, Royal Rumble '91, I'm certain I remember my Dad pointing out how they were all stomping when they threw punches, so I was at least partially aware something was up at that point. On the other hand, British Bulldog was clearly a genuine hero, I truly believed Max Moon might win Rumble '93, and Papa Shango controlled occult powers that made black ooze burst from people's heads.

 

Even as a teenager with internet access, in '98 I kind of bought into Austin and McMahon hating each other, and couldn't see how they'd book their way out of whichever PPV it was that ended with Stone Cold getting fired. I didn't think he was going to WCW or anything, but I had a shaky enough grasp of ratings and their importance that I expected him to miss several months at least.

 

And above all, I still completely buy into the importance of Titles, and I think I'd lose interest in wrestling if I didn't. Despite knowing it's about the pay day, the merch sales and the approval of their peers, maybe over and above the prestige of winning a belt, seeing a wrestler I've invested in make it to the top still matters, as much as winning the World Cup or a UFC Title matters. Even something like Curtis Axel winning the IC Title on Father's Day crosses over into real life triumph and emotion enough that it's neither here nor there whether it was a result of Vince McMahon's rubber stamp rather than his athletic efforts.

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I really got into wrestling as a wee lad, and I do not remember anyone ever deterring me from thinking it was real.  When I was in like fourth grade I went out for my school's pee-wee amateur wrestling squad, and as I was sparring with a kid at my first practice, I essentially shot on the kid and threw him in a figure four.  The coach came and pulled me off of him and threw me out of practice for doing that "big time fake shit"... and I was lectured by my Dad on the way home for doing that "fake shit you see on tv" and trying to hurt the kid.  As the season wore on, I started piecing together more and more, and realized that what is on television isn't like what we did after school in the gym.  Everyone at wrestling practice constantly referred to the pro stuff as "fake wrestling" or "that big time 'rasslin"... and the more I was around amateur stuff, I started to piece together that the guys in the ring were not on the up-and-up. 

 

For me, "Kayfabe" is protecting the business.  Doing what needs to be done so that the doors stay open and that everyone makes money.  Logic & continuity. Being "on" 24/7. 

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THEY EXIST.  Adults.  REAL people who are REALLY old and REALLY think that wrestling is REALLY REAL.  (Or that everything before the finish is real, or that only the title matches are real, or that only certain wrestlers have real matches.)  I've met far, far too many of these morons and psychopaths at indy shows.  Most of the smarks think that idiots like that are hilarious and try to troll them into fanboy rages, but I always found such people to be incredibly creepy and wanted to avoid them at all costs.  

 

I don't doubt that some "it's still real to me damn it" people do exist, but it has to be a very small fraction of the total wrestling fanbase. I've been to lots of shows in several different areas and never found anyone like you described. Most of the casuals or non-net savvy fans I meet at WWE live events watch wrestling the same way we do. They like some heels and some faces, and they just want to see fun matches and storylines.

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I don't doubt that some "it's still real to me damn it" people do exist, but it has to be a very small fraction of the total wrestling fanbase. I've been to lots of shows in several different areas and never found anyone like you described. Most of the casuals or non-net savvy fans I meet at WWE live events watch wrestling the same way we do. They like some heels and some faces, and they just want to see fun matches and storylines.

 

Are you sure?  I'd like to believe you but every day I drive by a Psychic, who has a store in a place where rent likely isn't very cheap.

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Good mention on that one: unless they're fans, amateur/collegiate/greco-roman wrestlers FUCKING HATE pro wrestling.  Like, VIOLENTLY.  I've ran into several of them (and some MMA guys, but there's more crossover there and less blind hate) who absolutely could not be reasoned with: "Pro rassling is all fake and is the stupidest thing in the world and none of those guys are real athletes and none of it hurts and they're all queer and I would totally garrote all of them tomorrow with the world's longest strand of piano wire if it were a viable option."  I've tried to discuss the issue with a few different guys who basically had that exact outlook, minus the explicit death threats

.  

 

I don't doubt that some "it's still real to me damn it" people do exist, but it has to be a very small fraction of the total wrestling fanbase. I've been to lots of shows in several different areas and never found anyone like you described. 

I've been ATTACKED by those people, more than once, while working as a heel.  (Thankfully the standards for angry unruly fans have slipped over the years and they were only some old women, or otherwise they could've sent me to the fuckin' hospital; but still, it happened.)  I can't begin to count how many people I've met who were so stupid, drunken, stoned, mentally ill, autistic, legitimately retarded, or otherwise-afflicted that they Truly Believed.  Maybe they just don't have those in most places, but they sure as hell still exist at every single little indy show in the South.  

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Are you sure?  I'd like to believe you but every day I drive by a Psychic, who has a store in a place where rent likely isn't very cheap.

 

Eh, psychics tell people what they want to hear. There's always a market for that. Apparently I just miss all the crazies, though. I've been to WWE shows, TNA shows, and shit-level indy shows, and I've never met anyone who thought it was all real, outside of maybe a couple really young kids. I mean, I've seen some huge party-line marks who like every face and hate every heel without exception, but that's no different than liking every protagonist in any other movie/tv series and never liking a movie/tv series villian. Not even they thought it was real life. Maybe we just live in alternate realities.

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In hindsight, I always knew it was fake, but always looked on it as a form of entertainment on par with as a cartoon or a video game, where yes, it was ridiculous/unrealistic, but was kept in suspense by just what crazy shit would happen next.

 

All my other friends would speculate about who would win a real fight between Hulk Hogan and Arnold Schwarznegger, or if Money Inc would really beat the Legion of Doom in a fair fight without having to cheat.

 

I was more interested in speculating about stupid angles that may be coming up like Bret Hart feuding with Crush because Crush burnt down Canada, or Owen Hart and Henry Godwinn forming a tag team over their love of pizza.

 

Yeah those two angles sucked, but my third grade newspaper article about Bam Bam and King Kong Bundy accidentally killing Razor Ramon during a match, and Owen Hart interrupting his funeral to mock his family was decades ahead of his time...DECADES.

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A few years ago I was at a WWE house show, and before it started this guy sat down behind me with his kids. We talked a bit, and he seemed like a nice, normal dude. His kids were excited, and everything was dandy. The opening match was Chavo vs. someone, and Chavo was doing the old stalling bit and then getting on the mic and heeling the crowd with stuff like, "Everyone in Colorado is fat and stupid!", the crowd was going nuts, but this same guy behind me went fucking crazy. He started screaming that he was gonna kill Chavo, he was frothing at the mouth, and literally had to be held back by another guy cause he was going to jump the rail.  :lol:

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I went to a Monday Nitro taping in Asheville NC a while back. I remember Flair having a nothing match and after the match the NWO journeyed out and did one of thier long beatdowns on him, including X-Pac doing the Bronco Buster and the chicken wing thing that he used to do.

 

The crowd was up on their feet, booing and giving the finger. I was also. It was a great time. But just up and do the left of me in the next row were two men, one in his mid-fifties and another in his early twenties. They were dressed as if they just came out of the hills and they were sitting and watching the beatdown. The older dude was visibly grinding his teeth. You could see how tightly his jaw was clenched. The younger guy was red faced and started to get up. He was leaning forward in his chair. The old dude reached his hand across the young guys chest to settle him down.

 

After the beatdown, Nitro went to commercial and people in the crowd were milling around. The young guy looked at the ring and then back at the old guy. He was shocked. Finally he said Daddy, I don't think I've ever seen someone get beaten like that Ric Flair just did, those NWO are sons of bitches and the dad was quiet for a second and then spit into a paper cup. He just replied by saying buncha assholes.

 

I wish that there were more wrestling fans like that. Wrestling needs angry hillbillies and young black children chanting Whoomp there it is constantly.

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