How do you self-identify as a wrestling fan?

[smkelly]

We are just wrestling fans. On a scale of 1 to 100, we are in the upper quarter in terms of time we spend on it. Some of us more than others.

I'm a huge wrestling enthusiast, but you're well above me. You have a larger collection, have been watching longer, and know more stuff than I do. Look at some of your posts for example - on CMax you and Ginnetty are discussing footage in complete/incomplete form, which is beyond the scope of my fandom. You routinely post Machiavellian-esque lists of matches. You may not think you are a super-fan, but I would believe the contrary. Since you used a number scale, I'd be like a 70-75ish, whereas you're closer to 90ish, and someone like Lynch would be at 100. Haven't you flown to Japan to watch wrestling?

 

You have 500 unwatched wrestlig DVDs. You just spent a bunch of time on a pragraph trying to convince people you are just a fan. You have your own wrestling message board.

Will has you there, man.

[Death From Above]

But I've watched:

 

* at least 95% of the Lakers game this year

* all but 3-4 Duke games this year, 1-2 of them which weren't available on the tube

* I suspect every ManU game this year that's available with 1 possible exception

Just as an aside personally I think there's a huge difference between being fans of a club that plays a sport, and being a fan of a sport. Similar to within wrestling how there are probably 5-10K people sitting in the crowd at Wrestlemania that are Undertaker fans and are really on there for The Streak match, then won't watch Raw for like 6 months (or some other prominent example).

 

I always have a hard time adding 2 and 2 and ending up with 4 when someone tells me they're a big hockey fan but "I didn't watch the Stanley Cup playoffs after my team got knocked out". I wouldn't miss a Stanley Cup final game for anything short of a family funeral.

 

A lot of this has to do simply with time constraints. There are a lot of people that would watch more of (insert sport here, or wrestling) if time allowed it but simply can't. So they follow one club, or federation, with religious fervor. At the end of the day a lot of them turn out to be bigger fans of that one club than of the sport as a whole.

 

In the last 12 months, I attended every Edmonton CFL home game personally. Our family (specifically my mother) has had season tickets since before Commonwealth Stadium even existed, and that was built in 1978. I wasn't even born until 1981. As far as I can figure, I've never missed a home game. Like, ever. So I'm clearly a fan of the club, but it doesn't end there for me.

 

I also watched every single game of the CFL season on TV (which is possible with an 8 team league), with the only exceptions being a couple I would have missed because I was in the process of going to the stadium in Edmonton in games that were part of a double header (which can't really count as a "miss"). I did the same last season too. I was also catching (on average) 2 or 3 games of NFL on Sundays, plus Monday Night Football, plus all the NFL playoffs. I also watched a few of the college bowl games, though I've long since given up trying to understand all the conferences and follow all the political bullshit about which school got stuck in the wrong bowl this year.

 

So I watched a lot of football.

 

I'm a real hardcore fan of the sport to the point that I am dedicating a serious portion of my free time during a year to it, beyond a most likely objectively reasonable amount. Those two seasons in Canada and the USA have some overlap, but realistically that's what I'm doing with my Thursday-Monday nights (and Sunday afternoons) for about half the year, give or take.

 

There are a lot more people that would call themselves "football fans" that only follow one team religiously, plus probably catch the Monday Night game. There were plenty of Eagles fans that couldn't stand the thought of a Packers/Steelers game in the playoffs, for example. They are probably the normal ones, I suppose. Just as there are millions that are just watching WWE, and then moving on with the week, probably even many that would love some of the stuff we all have dug into over the years, but they have most likely neither the time nor motivation to go far enough to find out.

 

I think we're clearly on another level than the normal fan.

 

Not saying this applies to you personally in any direct way, merely a sub-point of the current discussion relating wrestling fandom to mainstream sports fandom.

[goodhelmet]

I need to retract some of my argumentative statements since the post is "how you see yourself". I shouldn't judge others on how they see themselves, only how I perceive them.

[Death From Above]

Yeah let me be clear I am not trying to knock anybody here either. I mean clearly even if I was, it would be a rather distinct example of the pot calling the kettle black here. Just making an incredibly long-winded observation, and hopefully the point didn't get lost in all that.

[goodhelmet]

I just re-read your post and I can see why not having a circle of friends to watch wrestling would hurt your ability to enjoy it. Hell, I was supposed to have 4 friends show up for Mania on Sunday. 1 showed up.

 

However, I have made friends on this board and through trading. Hell, I raised over $500 for a buddy with cancer last year from the tape trading community. I made a post in the trading forum about the incredibly nice people I have met through wrestling. I talk to Naylor and Schneider nearly every other day. I call my buddy Baker nearly every day without fail on my way home from work. It's a strange wonderful thing when the wrestling nerds become your friends.

[Bob Morris]

I need to retract some of my argumentative statements since the post is "how you see yourself". I shouldn't judge others on how they see themselves, only how I perceive them.

I still don't think your "none of us is just a wrestling fan" is necessarily wrong. We can all be called passionate about pro wrestling to some degree... some of us may be more passionate than others, but it's certainly something that interests us to the point that we go beyond just talking about which wrestlers we think are cool or which matches we thought were awesome.

[Tim Evans]

I think the only thing that has changed for me from when I first started watching wrestling(1995) to now is I just have more options to watch. Back in the day, My friends and I were huge WWF marks and that was really the only wrestling we watched. I started getting into WCW for the Luchadors in 96 and I was a huge fan of Randy Savage and still am. Now in 2011, I watch more wrestling now than I did when you had hundreds of hours of stuff on cable. You got Lucha on the computer, WWE shows, WWC, Youtube, Will's DVDS etc. I've also gone to more shows now than ever. Just bought a ticket to go to Smackdown on May 3rd. When Wrestling was really hot, I only went to maybe 2 shows a year. Just this year, I've been to at least 7.

[tomk]

"Freak"

[Coffey]

I am more pessimistic than optimistic. The things which I enjoy, I am often lambasted for on-line as it seems to differ from the norm. I don't hate Triple H and actually think he's really good. I have never liked Rey Mysterio (or most Cruserweights, or Lucha Libre in general). Although I am not a fan of the "WWE style" so to speak, I do think it is unbelievable for wrestlers to be normal looking guys that you would see on a college campus. It is why I struggle to get into a lot of Independent promotions, like Ring of Honor, because I can never take a Jack Evans or Amazing Red seriously. I think talking, especially in the United States, really matters more than the in-ring action a lot of the time (although both are obviously important) and it's a big reason why I have never been super high on Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit or the like. Which is odd because I do like a lot of Puroresu, despite the language barrier.

 

I first started watching professional wrestling sometime during the build-up to Wrestlemania V. I distinctly remember the Mega-Power splitting and Savage getting jealous at Hogan carrying Miss Elizabeth to the back. So sometime around that Saturday Night's Main Event is when I started watching. According to Wikipedia, Wrestlemania V happened April 2, 1989, so I guess that means I have been watching wrestling for about twenty-two years now, which puts me at seven years old when I started watching, which sounds about right.

 

I first got on-line at the end of 1998 and I remember being confused by all the hate thrown toward both Kevin Nash and Goldberg. That was when everything changed, really, including my perspective and a lot of my opinions. The more information available to you, I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain. Once you start listening to shoot interviews and reading about the backstage stuff, you even find yourself watching the on-screen product differently. On more than one occasion, when watching wrestling nowadays, I will see someone like, let's say Alberto Del Rio. He wins the Royal Rumble to win a title shot at Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania comes and he curtain jerks and loses. So the first thing I think is "maybe he failed a wellness test." That shit would never have crossed my mind without the internet, obviously.

 

I find myself going back and watching a lot of older stuff as I am generally disinterested in the current product. I was completely apathetic for Wrestlemania this year, however I am highly entertained by going back and watching old One Man Gang, Adrian Adonis, Butch Reed or Jim Duggan stuff. Not only that but when I was growing up, I did not really realize how good I had it. The undercard was full of people like Curt Hennig, Rick Rude, Ted DiBiase, Ricky Steamboat & Randy Savage. Nowadays, the top of the card is people like John Cena, The Miz and Kane. It's just two different worlds.

 

I would like to think that I have not been persuaded negatively by differing viewpoints on the internet, but over time, I most certainly have. I like to think that my thoughts, ideas, opinions and whatnot are all just me being me and having my tastes change over time, but those tastes changed because of reading or hearing insider shit, you know?

 

A lot of the time, one of my biggest downfalls, is that I get too...passionate, I guess you could say, when defending my viewpoints. Sometimes, I'm not even sure...I know viewpoints and opinions are all subjective, but when someone has the complete exact opposite opinion to me on everything I think I'm being trolled, or that they're irrational or whatever, but all arrows in my head point to them being wrong. Obviously an opinion can not really be wrong, it's an opinion, but it just seems way too coincidental. I can't tell when people are just fucking with me because I'm easily riled up or when they honestly just believe everything that they type. It's why I've been banned from pretty much every forum I have ever posted on!

 

I have been to a lot of shows, spent a lot of money on wrestling, love talking about wrestling and still even get together with friends for wrestling events but I almost feel embarrassed if a non-wrestling fan finds out that I'm a fan. It usually leads to ridicule and it's hard to defend when their idea of wrestling is just whatever Vince McMahon presents on Monday Night.

 

So, I'm not sure if that really explains who or what I am in regards to being a fan, but I wouldn't rule out the fact that now I just am out of habit anymore.

[Jingus]

I never *ever* understood the love for Sakura Hirota. Ever.

Well, it's been oft-said that comedy is the most subjective thing in the world. Personally, I've never understood why so many people insist that Bill Hicks was some kind of revelatory genius. The stuff Hirota does just looks funny to me, it's hard to explain.

 

What do they think of current stuff that is a continuation of cruiser/juniors stuff? In other words, your typical ROH or DG or PWG stuff?

Dunno, we've never really talked about that. They do an amateurish little podcast reviewing WWE/TNA shows, and everything else is just random matches I've been showing them on Youtube. The superindy companies are all very careful to make sure that none of their trademarked footage ends up on there, so the subject rarely comes up. They seem pretty neutral on the X Division, if that helps, in a sort of "well, that was kinda cool... now onto the next segment" sort of way.

 

I wonder if juniors-style spot wrestling has now gone so far beyond 90s juniors spot wrestling that stuff from 15 years ago is boring.

Part of it seems to be the "competitive sport" aspect of some of those matches. The younger fellows seem to prefer a recognizable heel/face structure to their matches, and don't much like the J-Cup style of Guys Doing Movez. And anytime the match starts with the traditional "kill ten minutes doing random mat wrestling", it loses them right from the beginning. They can appreciate the big flips and bumps, but they want the match to have more story to it than a lot of the spotty junior stuff of that era. And yeah, I'm sure that long years of having flyers like Styles or Mysterio on their screen every week has probably numbed them to the trailblazers of the past. It's an uphill battle just trying to convince them about all the stuff which Sabu popularized, let alone anyone else more obscure than him.

 

(And incidentally, they love Tiger Mask/Dynamite Kid. Those matches were easily the best-received cruiserweight work that I've shown them so far.)

 

Big heavies like Hansen are drmatic and theatrical, so they're not terribly far removed from say Taker-HHH.

Kind of, but they still want action. Tonight we saw a Hansen/Misawa match where they both loooked kinda lethargic and spent half the time sitting around in headlocks, and the kids could definitely tell that this wasn't either man's best work. They overall seem much less impressed by 90s New Japan than same-era All Japan, the likes of Muta and Chono have mostly gotten an "yeah, that was okay" reaction. But it's not just the size that counts; give 'em something like Hokuto/Kandori (also tonight) and they loved it, in an awestruck sort of "damn, that had to hurt" kind of way.

[El-P]

I never *ever* understood the love for Sakura Hirota. Ever.

Well, it's been oft-said that comedy is the most subjective thing in the world. The stuff Hirota does just looks funny to me, it's hard to explain.

Yeah, Sakura was funnier (or less annoying) than most comedy workers in joshi, but that doesn't mean much to me. The fact that she is *loved* just baffles me. Then again, I always thought GAEA as a whole was the most overrated joshi promotion ever, despite being the most popular at one time. ARSION, Jd', JWP and AJW big matches smoked GAEA.

 

(And incidentally, they love Tiger Mask/Dynamite Kid. Those matches were easily the best-received cruiserweight work that I've shown them so far.)

That is very surprising.

[Resident Evil]

No it's not very surprising. It's to be expected.

[El-P]

No it's not very surprising. It's to be expected.

Considering Jingus said they're down on most cruiserweight matches, no it's not.

But your reply was.

[Resident Evil]

No it's not very surprising. It's to be expected.

Considering Jingus said they're down on most cruiserweight matches, no it's not.

But your reply was.

 

No actually, it is to be expected even with what Jingus said about them being dowon on other cruiserweiht amtches.

[jdw]

You have 500 unwatched wrestlig DVDs. You just spent a bunch of time on a pragraph trying to convince people you are just a fan. You have your own wrestling message board.

I have 500+ unwatched non-wrestling disks... and that's not an exageration. I just got the entire collection of Weeds, they're just sitting on the shelf still in the shrink wrap... and there's only a 50% change that I'll watch them before 2011 is up. The Cracker disks that I'm watching now are probably 3 years old, and I was susprised they were still in the shrink wrap when I pulled them off the shelf.

 

I'm just now reading my birthday present from my girlfriend... from last year. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, the second book in the series has just been released, and she'll be getting it to me... lord knows when I'll get to it because there are another 30-50 new books on the shelf that I'm slowly working my way through.

 

I picked up my sub to the WON when Misawa died. I *just now* referenced the Thanksgiving Shows story over in another thread here because I just now clicked on that issue. The Mania issue that someone referenced in a response? Haven't even clicked on it. Probably skim a couple issues every other month. Yes, a total waste of money when you read something that little.

 

I own a wrestling site where we talking about sports just about every day, and wrestling as a side item.

 

Those 500 disks? They've been picked up over 5 years... probably more.

 

Again, people seem to think there are only Casual Fans and Batshit Crazy Hardcore Fans. No, there aren't. There's a wide range of fans, from casual fans who really aren't much of wrestling fans to guys like you and Alan 4L who are wrestling fans 24/7.

 

John

[El-P]

You have 500 unwatched wrestlig DVDs. You just spent a bunch of time on a pragraph trying to convince people you are just a fan. You have your own wrestling message board.

I have 500+ unwatched non-wrestling disks... and that's not an exageration. I just got the entire collection of Weeds, they're just sitting on the shelf still in the shrink wrap... and there's only a 50% change that I'll watch them before 2011 is up. The Cracker disks that I'm watching now are probably 3 years old, and I was susprised they were still in the shrink wrap when I pulled them off the shelf.

 

I'm just now reading my birthday present from my girlfriend... from last year. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, the second book in the series has just been released, and she'll be getting it to me... lord knows when I'll get to it because there are another 30-50 new books on the shelf that I'm slowly working my way through.

This post makes me feel good about my unwatched DVD from last Christmas, my few dozens of Go of unwatched wrestling on DVDs and hard drive, and the 60 or so unlistened CD's on my shelves.

And between unwatched wrestling and Mary-Louise Parker, I choose the WeedMilf in a second.

[Kronos]

And between unwatched wrestling and Mary-Louise Parker, I choose the WeedMilf in a second.

God, I love her so very very much - esp on West Wing.

 

I just got about 18 books from amazon, plus another 6 kindle purchases. I have probably 50 books I have acquired in the last year (books, kindle, and iBooks) that I have yet to read. I have 60+ movies purchased from iTunes, over half of which I have not watched since buying them. Plus half a dozen seasons of TV shows bought from iTunes. And China Beach seasons 1-4, which took forever to find, forever to torrent, forever to convert from avi to itunes, and I have now watched. . .season 1 and the opener of season 2.

 

We're all addictive in our ways. In 2008 when I discovered CMax, I was spending hundreds of $$ a month on discs I couldn't afford and never watched (not counting ROH, Shimmer, and WWE purchases) -- and eventually sold. And that's not even taking into account all the terabytes from PWT I never watched and eventually deleted.

 

And don't get me started on comics and graphic novels. I almost got sucked back into that hobby a month ago but forcibly stopped myself after only a few hundred bucks.

 

Maybe the point is not that we are obsessive wrestling fans. Maybe the point is we are obsessive collecting geek types, who happen to number Rasslin as one of our vices?

[S.L.L.]

I thought a little while about how I want to answer this one.

 

"Freak"

That fits pretty well, as does the stuff goodhelmet and Bob wrote.

 

Beyond that, though, labeling varieties of fandom feels really useless these days. To put it into perspective, one new term that's come up lately is "antismark". It's been thrown at me and several other people on this board, many of whom regularly watch IWRG matches on YouTube. Insofar as the word "smark" means anything, I would have to think watching handheld camera footage of independent lucha libre promotions on YouTube would have to be considered an extremely "smarky" activity. Yet, those who do so are not simply labeled "antismarks" in spite of it, but often because of it, which suggests to me that in 2011, the word "smark" either has changed it's meaning drastically, or it doesn't actually mean anything at all. To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in finding out. I don't need a label to define me other than "wrestling fan", "really, really big wrestling fan", or possibly "freak".

[Kronos]

Beyond that, though, labeling varieties of fandom feels really useless these days. To put it into perspective, one new term that's come up lately is "antismark". It's been thrown at me and several other people on this board, many of whom regularly watch IWRG matches on YouTube. Insofar as the word "smark" means anything, I would have to think watching handheld camera footage of independent lucha libre promotions on YouTube would have to be considered an extremely "smarky" activity. Yet, those who do so are not simply labeled "antismarks" in spite of it, but often because of it, which suggests to me that in 2011, the word "smark" either has changed it's meaning drastically, or it doesn't actually mean anything at all. To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in finding out. I don't need a label to define me other than "wrestling fan", "really, really big wrestling fan", or possibly "freak".

I understand that term to mean someone who enjoys mainstream wrestling. If "smarks" like ROH and PWG (and maybe Japan, as long as it's full of headdropping and high flying), then antismarks trumpet the talent of Mark Henry or appreciate a silly angle.

 

It's a derogatory term. And stupid.

[jdw]

But I've watched:

 

* at least 95% of the Lakers game this year

* all but 3-4 Duke games this year, 1-2 of them which weren't available on the tube

* I suspect every ManU game this year that's available with 1 possible exception

Just as an aside personally I think there's a huge difference between being fans of a club that plays a sport, and being a fan of a sport.

 

In soccer:

 

* I watch the FA Cup Final even when ManU is bounced

* I watch the Champions League Final even when ManU is bounced

* earlier this year, I watched the Carling Cup Final even though ManU wasn't in it

* Scott and I watched the World Cup Final (and a crapload of other matches) even though our teams weren't in it

 

I'm a Futbol fan. ManU has been my team since 1992/93, but I watch more than just ManU games.

 

In basketball:

 

* I pretty much always watch the NBA Finals even if the Lakers aren't in it

* I watch a pretty fair amount of non-Lakers playoff games prior to the Finals

* I probably watch 50-100 non-Lakers regular season games, depending on the year

 

I'm a pro basketball fan. The Lakers are my team, so they draw most of my attention. But Clippers-Celts a recently got my attention as well. Celts-Heat gets me attention. Checked out the Knicks after the Lebron trade. Spurs against a quality team can get my attention if nothing else is on and I want to get a feel for a potential opponent of the Lakers.

 

Same generally with College Basketball, though I spent much less time watching non-Duke games because time has been chewed up with other stuff (including futbol and the NBA). When I'm in College Hoops Fan Mode, I'll watch a couple non-Duke games a week.

 

College football is pretty nuts. I'm a USC Fan, so of course I watch their games. But during football season, Scott and I typically start with the 12:30 pm PT games and watch through at least the 5 pm PT games that end about 8/8:30. If USC is in the evening Pac 10 game, that starts around 7 to 8, and we watch that. We both have the ESPN Package, so we're flipping all over the place: CBS SEC game, ESPN's coverage of everything, ND on NBC, Pac 10 on Fox Sports. It gets really bad if there's an upset brewing in one of the early Big 10 games as I'll be getting a call from Scott between 11-11:30 telling me to tune into a game. We then can go from 11 am PT until 11 PM PT flipping between roughly a dozen games.

 

Scott's an Auburn Fan. I'm a USC Fan. But we're both big College Football Fans, so we'll check out Bama vs LSU because it could be a good/interesting game that impacts the season.

 

I watched vastly more college football from September to the first week in January this past season than I have watched wrestling in the past four years *combined*. And we watched the same amount of football in 2009 and 2008.

 

When I was a bigger baseball fan back in the 90s into the early 00s, it was the same. Any Braves game when it was on. Giants to check out Bonds. Red Sox when I got a chance. Yanks. Dodgers. Even if it was background TV while working on something, which baseball is great for because you can look up for the money moments of an at bat.

 

What I'm trying to get at is that College Football Fans, Baseball Fans, NBA Fans, NFL Fans (which I didn't even tough on), College Hoops fans... those folks don't go running around with some nonsensical Marks / Smart / Smarks / IWC tag that they toss around at each other, or proudly wrap around themselves.

 

They are Fans. Some of them are Big Fans.

 

Am I a Big Lakers Fan? Perhaps, but not a major one. Yohe, Jag and I don't take the day off to go to those 10 Championship Parades that have happened since 1980... though I work with one woman who does. I don't go to many Lakers home games: simply can't afford to given how they price the tickets (and parking and food and drinks). I simply watch the games, but a few dvds, and might have two Lakers t-shirts in the cribs... one that goes back to the three-peat and is a bit worn.

 

Big Duke Fan? People who see me post about them might think so, but I'm nothing compared to Bruce. And Bruce is nothing compared to the people who go to the Arena. I'm a Duke fan... not a casual one, but a serious one.

 

ManU? Never gone to one of the pubs around here that air the games to hang out with the hardcore fans. But I do get up at 4:30 am in the morning to watch a game when needed. I'm a serious ManU game.

 

That's what I'm trying to get at. We are just wrestling fans. We're not groupies. I don't think many of us want to hang out with wrestlers, or be in the business. We like watching our wrestling. Just as serious/big sports fans like watching their sports. We like talking about it, just as serious/big sports fans do. We're modern fans in terms of comminucations: we do a lot of our "talk" online, our "friends" that we talk to are online. Old school sports fans would talk at a bar, or with buddies while watching games, or call into sports radio. We know that we can pop open a browser and find some folks to talk to about wrestling... or if we're on sports boards, about sports.

 

We are all just fans. I suspect the folks here that go to Comic Con or other fan conventions can tell you that we all fit somewhere on the 1-100 scale. Some higher, some lower.

 

And no... Will and Lynch aren't 100. That would be Dave, Wade and Alverez... guys like Madden and Scherer who took their fandom and got *inside* the business. Will and Lynch might be making some coin off the business, but until they get hired by the WWE to run the tape library, they're short of 100.

 

The rest of us... we're down the scale. We are Big Fans, or in some cases *were* big fans and now are pretty damn casual even about things we like.

 

I'm a huge wrestling enthusiast, but you're well above me. You have a larger collection, have been watching longer, and know more stuff than I do.

My dad has been watching baseball longer than I have, has gone to more games, was a Dodgers season ticket co-holder for about 15 years, played it at a far higher level than I ever did... but when I was at the peak of my baseball fandom (80s through 90s) he'd admit that I was a bigger fan than he was. Probably would admit that even as a kid I was a bigger fan. He'd say it wasn't even close, either.

 

There is no easy formula to determine bigger fan.

 

Look at some of your posts for example - on CMax you and Ginnetty are discussing footage in complete/incomplete form, which is beyond the scope of my fandom.

It's actually really narrow: All Japan TV in the 80s and 90s, more than half of years was stuff that I watched at the time. My contribution is really very little on that early 80s AJPW stuff other than curiousity of what aired, what's available, what might be missing, and whether there are any avenues to collect it.

 

Dylan (and Jerome?) watched everything that ECW ever kicked out. *That* is beyond the scope of my fandom. I look at Alan 4L's list of 2010 matches that he rated ****+, and it's laughable to think I'll ever again remotely be at that level of caring about wrestling, let alone watching all of those. There are people sifting through all of the WAR and SWS matches available... and god bless them for their efforts. Me? I haven't even popped in a disk from a set on my favorite wrestler of all-time that a friend got me for Christmas. I will eventually, but there's no clearer sign of my "enthusiasm" than that: my Kawada set is sitting on the corner of my desk, I see it every night, and instead I'm currently watching Cracker dvds, getting caught up on the first two seasons of The Mentalist, finishing off this season of Top Chef so I have space for Masters that just started up, am eyeballing those Justified episodes on the bedroom dvr knowing that I have to watch the Season 1 dvd first while trying to resist the temption to pop back in the Firefly disks I finished recently that were so much fun...

 

I'm not even a wrestling enthusiast anymore.

 

This thread is about how we define ourselves? I said what it was: I'm a wrestling fan. Want more? A big one, bigger in the past than now. Currently a rather lazy, unethused one who finds it easier to watch probably 50 things *other than* wrestling. It's a bad sign when I'd rather watch a UNC vs UK game... the two college hoops programs I hate the most.

 

 

You routinely post Machiavellian-esque lists of matches.

Not much anymore.

 

 

You may not think you are a super-fan, but I would believe the contrary. Since you used a number scale, I'd be like a 70-75ish, whereas you're closer to 90ish, and someone like Lynch would be at 100.

Not even close.

 

Haven't you flown to Japan to watch wrestling?

In 1995 and 1996.

 

I did a shitload of drugs and booze in college. It was 1984-1987, and even earlier in high school. I haven't had anything to drink since the end of 1987, and no drugs since then other than painkillers after surgery.

 

I'm not the drunk dopehead I was in college. I'm not the fan I was in 1995-96.

 

The irony is that I think everyone knows the second part of that. It's well known that I'm not especially relevant anymore, and don't attempt or try to be.

 

Just a wrestling fan. Someone who has watched more 80s WWF in the past four years than All Japan is little more than "just a fan". A big one in one sense: I still like to talk about it a bit, and collect stuff that I don't always watch. But not terribly enthusiastic, and rather narrow. Which again... I think *everyone* knows. It's not the late 90s anymore, and we all are well aware of that.

 

John

[jdw]

And between unwatched wrestling and Mary-Louise Parker, I choose the WeedMilf in a second.

Yeah... I really need to pull those DVDs off the shelf and start watching them.

 

John

[jdw]

To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in finding out. I don't need a label to define me other than "wrestling fan", "really, really big wrestling fan", or possibly "freak".

Bingo.

 

The labeling just doesn't strike me as very useful. As I said in my first post: it's usually just a bunch of bullshit, and has always been going back when Scherer & Co. were trying to play Us ("We're real wrestling fans") vs Them ("Those folks think too much").

 

There are things of much more value:

 

"Will is a big wrestling fan."

 

"Will is a helluva collector and great at making sets."

 

"Will is a helluva a nice guy."

 

"Ditch is a big wrestling fan."

 

"Ditch is a big puroresu fan."

 

"Ditch does a great job making matches available to folks."

 

There's some useful stuff in there, but it the"wrestling fan" part is really just a small thing in there.

 

"Ditch and Will are smarks."

 

WTF? What value is that. It tells us nothing beyond what we already know: they're big wrestling fans.

 

"Phil is a Fujiwara Fan."

 

Okay... that tells us one wrestler that Phil likes. It tells is what beyond that? It doesn't even tell us why Phil likes about Fujiwara. We'd need to go beyond the label to actually reading what he's said about Fujiwara to find that out.

 

Labels along these lines are just a bunch of bullshit.

 

John

[S.L.L.]

Beyond that, though, labeling varieties of fandom feels really useless these days. To put it into perspective, one new term that's come up lately is "antismark". It's been thrown at me and several other people on this board, many of whom regularly watch IWRG matches on YouTube. Insofar as the word "smark" means anything, I would have to think watching handheld camera footage of independent lucha libre promotions on YouTube would have to be considered an extremely "smarky" activity. Yet, those who do so are not simply labeled "antismarks" in spite of it, but often because of it, which suggests to me that in 2011, the word "smark" either has changed it's meaning drastically, or it doesn't actually mean anything at all. To be honest, I'm not terribly interested in finding out. I don't need a label to define me other than "wrestling fan", "really, really big wrestling fan", or possibly "freak".

I understand that term to mean someone who enjoys mainstream wrestling. If "smarks" like ROH and PWG (and maybe Japan, as long as it's full of headdropping and high flying), then antismarks trumpet the talent of Mark Henry or appreciate a silly angle.

That's a big part of it, but there's also a common acknowledgement that "antismarks" also like a lot of non-mainstream stuff, but they often like the "wrong" non-mainstream stuff. Liking FUTEN instead of Dragon's Gate, for example, suggests "antismarkdom". Liking lucha libre at all is grounds for the claim to a certain extent, but if it isn't, liking Black Terry and Negro Navarro more than Mistico or La Sombra is. And there are mainstream wrestlers that are "right" to like. Angle still is, I think. Michaels was up until his retirement. Call that into question...well, you get the idea.

 

It's a derogatory term. And stupid.

Exactly.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm a Futbol fan. ManU has been my team since 1992/93, but I watch more than just ManU games.

Don't want to come across like a dick here, I mean I'm a Brit who loves American wrestling, but I've always been slightly amused by the notion of American "soccer" fans.

 

So I just want to test your credentials real quick here John. If you're as big a Man U fan as you say you are, who was United's and England's right-back before Gary Neville? I'd want you to answer that almost instantly.

 

Almost like who did Rick Rude beat for the IC title at WM5, y'know? That should be instant knowledge for anyone who has followed the game since 1992, not least a Man U fan.

 

I'm a massive football fan by the way - and get this - I've never had a team. I don't support anyone which is admittedly highly unusual but I have my reasons. And I agree with the notion that there are really two types of fans: fans who only care about their team, who tend to have a narrow fairly parochial view of the game, and then "proper" fans. The sort of fan who'd be excited to watch, I dunno, say Milan vs. Barcelona in a random Champions League game. Often the latter type will have a team they follow, but do not try to transmute any and all footy chat to that team.

 

EDIT: Incidentally, my football fandom is in a bit of a slump at the minute. Probably parallel with jdw's wrestling fandom slump. Once upon I time I could name the first XI of pretty much any team across Europe, now I'd probably struggle with anyone outside the top 4 of the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A.

[jdw]

Don't want to come across like a dick here, I mean I'm a Brit who loves American wrestling, but I've always been slightly amused by the notion of American "soccer" fans.

 

So I just want to test your credentials real quick here John. If you're as big a Man U fan as you say you are, who was United's and England's right-back before Gary Neville? I'd want you to answer that almost instantly.

When I started watching in the 1992/93 season it was Parker on the right with Irwin on the left with Bruce & Pallister in the middle.

 

John