Are psychology, "logic" and storytelling within a match overrated?

[jdw]

I'm just talking hypothetically here, although I'd love to sit down with a bunch of Flair matches and check it out, but couldn't one argue that Flair intentionally does things like that in order to lull his opponent into a false sense of security? They think they've got Flair right where they want him, and then Flair can pounce with the nutshot or roll them up and grab the tights/ropes and keep the title?

So Flair takes a face into the corner, chops him a bit, *allows* the face to overpower him and win the spot in the corner to climax with the Face First Flop to... lull his opponent into a false sense of security?

 

No.

 

The psych is that The Face Is Stronger. Not that Flair is using double secret reverse psychology to only make the face *think* he's stronger than Flair.

 

John

[jdw]

Ric Flair claiming to be the best wrestler in the world and proceeding to out wrestle his opponent doesn't work in a pro-wrestling context because the crowd wants the exact opposite.

Baba, Inoki or Misawa claiming to be the best wrestler in the world and then out wrestling his opponents doesn't work because... wait... the crowd actually did want it.

 

Japan only thing?

 

Okay, so how about Hogan? Bruno? Austin? Gagne?

 

Okay... so it's an NWA Heel Champion thingy, which Bockwinkle was an off shoot of in the AWA.

 

Fans don't have a problem with a Face saying he's the best, and that the gold around his waste proves that he is... then going out and beating up the heel.

 

On the other hand, NWA territorial fans wanted to see the Local Hero win the title, and beat up the Champ. Well, since they weren't usually winning the title, the Heel Champ goes over the top in making the face look strong... and to a degree bitches out to the face. This wasn't unique to Flair: it was evident in Thesz matches, though Lou didn't take it to the extreme that Ric did.

 

Local Fans didn't think Ric was the best. They thought Jerry or Kerry or Tommy was the best.

 

 

Flair claiming to be a better wrestler than his opponent was a form of intimidation.

You're projecting here. Did it ever look like Jerry or Kerry were intimidated by Ric? They just thought he was an asshole who needed an ass kicking.

 

At the end of the day what he really meant was that he knew all the tricks, and since his definition of being the best in the world meant wearing the gold, he would do anything to retain his title.

Except that Ric usually didn't "do anything" to retain the title. Often it was the face throwing Ric over the top rope, or punching the ref, or some other nonsense. On occassion it was Ric, but it wasn't like Ric went in there with this plan:

 

"If I simply walked to the back after 2 minutes, the NWA might take my title away. So I'm going to wrestle for 20 minutes then get DQ'd or COR to keep my title to trick everyone. Wooooo~!"

 

The beauty of Flair was that he *didn't* know all the tricks. For all his bullshit about being the dirtiest player in the game, most of his dirty shit typically backfired.

 

Flair = Wil E. Coyote

 

Except he wasn't elaborate about his cheating: it was first grade level bullshit.

 

 

The whole sports analogy falls apart for me for the simple reason that when he was a face he hit moves more often than when he was a heel, and most of the time he came off the top in a blind panic.

Most of the time, Ric would go up extremely slowly to the top to give the opponent lots of time to come over and toss him off. If you look at people doing things in a "blind panic"... well, panic typically has a sense of urgency to it. Ric didn't do much of anything with urgency. While not as slow as Harley, Ric was "methodical" on offense or when trying to do something to an opponent. He wasn't exactly Tiger Mask there.

 

 

The whole point of Flair's schtick is that it all unravels and he looks like the Emperor with no clothes.

Except that it unravels from the *start*... and in match after match after match.

 

You're a Dallas Fan.

 

You watch Kerry kick the living shit out of Ric on 08/15/82, and Ric not surviving due to a "plan" by due to (in the storyline) that NWA Ref.

 

Is it any surprises that Emperor Ric's shit unravels and he has no clothes on 12/25/82?

 

Ric's matches aren't isolated events. They're not Do The Right Thing where there isn't a sequel or an movie earlier in the series. They're freaking James Bond movies. There are 20+ of them. It's not exactly a revelation by the 12th of them that Bond is a British agent and has some dude named Q giving him cool toys to play with.

 

 

It just doesn't work as a sports analogy and there's no point thinking about it like that.

We've used both sports and movie analogies for Ric. He's a bitching, stooging heel... which is a movie analogy.

 

 

If you wanna kayfabe it, then I think he panicked when the pressure was on.

Which is 300+ times a year, multiple times a match?

 

I'm not buying the analogy. The Face First Flop isn't panicking. It's bitching and stooging. Getting tossed off the top isn't panicking. It's a stooge heel spot, just like when Arn comes off the top to try to his a "something" on a prone opponent and takes a boot to the mug: it's stooging, with Arn selling it wonderfully.

 

 

The real reason is that people wanted to see the spot in the same way they wanted to see James Brown get injured and leave the stage, etc.,

James Brown gets "injured" and folks wanted him to leave? You're confused there.

 

The Godfather was working his ass off all show long and wore himself out (tired/exhaustion), doesn't think he go on, his sidekick tries to lead him off... his background singers and the *fans* encourage him to go on performing... and Brown goes on performing. The fans didn't want to see James leave: they wanted him to STAY.

 

With Ric... they want to see Ric get his ass kicked, and since Ric is a bitching stooging heel that they've seen get his ass kicked countless times, they know he'll get his ass kicked tonight.

 

 

but most of Flair's matches involved an escalating sense of panic. Early on in a match, he'd beg off to trick his opponent into an inside shot, but as the match wore on the begging off more and more legitimate. You could probably write an entire treatise on Flair choking.

Except you were earlier saying that Ric had a plan to keep the title, which he did. Hard to say that's choking.

 

I think that's the big thing in trying to think too hard about Ric's work and defending it: one ends up circling around on one's own argument while circling the wagon. Ric the Worker and Ric the Wrestler never put as much thought into his work as the people defending it. Worker and Wrestler's level if thought is frankly much closer to exactly what I've described it:

 

Get and keep the crowd into the match by Keep Things Moving Along, Got Stuff To Do and Bitching & Stooging to Put Over The Face.

 

Ric works simplistic match with simplistic storylines (if they go beyond Strong Face vs Bitch Ric). Ric isn't a deep enough thinker to dream up, "This is where I start to panic the rest of the match". Christ... he probably doesn't even think in terms of "desperation". It's just Stuff to him.

 

Seriously... I think all of us going go to the library and pull a random Dick & Jane book off the shelf and find more layers of storytelling and themes than Ric put into his matches.

 

Ric and his matches were great because he did so much Stuff, kept it moving along, made his opponents who the fans loved look great by bitching and stooging and selling for them, was tremendously charismatic and theatrical, and had a fine sense of drama.

 

Key word in there:

 

Great

 

John

[jdw]

[this is unconnected to the main thread]

 

Which is what I think we'd all agree if we analyzed Heel Champion Wrestler Ric Flair at any depth. Dumb, Weak and/or a Bitch in most of what he did.

"Flair" played 2 different characters who overlap.

 

1. Champ Flair from the early 80s was billed and played as a legit badass wrestler who could out-wrestle anyone. He played a version of this again in '89 and again in '93. This guy was not weak or a bitch. He was someone go could go 60-minutes with anyone.

As a heel, he was not a bad ass. Watching him go 60 with Brody: Brody kicked his ass. Watching him against Kerry. Kerry kicked his ass.

 

 

2. The Champ Flair from the mid-80s that we all know and love was the sort of guy who would talk big about being the best wrestler around, but when it came down to it, he'd prefer to hide behind someone else or cheat or whatever.

No, that was Ric as a Champ from day one.

 

There were two Ric characters:

 

Heel Ric

Face Ric

 

Then just slight variations of them. Heel NWA Champ Ric is probably pretty close to Mid-Atlantic Heel Ric where Ric was often a champ anyway. I don't know if there's any Flair vs David from St Louis available from the time where Ric was between belts (run in to Starcade '83), but I suspect we'd find pretty standard Heel Ric in those matches.

 

Heel NWA Champ Ric just got to talk a bigger game... but one suspect his "best thing going today" type of comments were there when he was the US Champ in Mid Atlantic.

 

 

His pride and joy was BEING CHAMP. The only thing that mattered to him was the belt and all that came with it. He'd lie, beg, borrow, steal to keep the title.

Yes... that's something that went back before winning the NWA Title, especially as a heel in Mid Atlantic.

 

Was he "weak" and a "bitch"? If he needed to be. I always saw the begging off spots as NOT him genuinely being scared, but as a pyschological play: luring the guy in, getting him to wear himself out because he knows that a) he, the veteran Ric Flair, can take it and b ) the opponent will eventually leave a gap for him to regain advantage.

Except that Ric typically was getting his ass kicked down the stretch, so the "60 Minute Man" and the notion of "wearing the opponent down" flies a bit in the face of Ric usually being the one worse for the wear down the stretch.

 

Ric didn't "need" to be weak. He *was* weak. That was the character he chose to play because it made the Local Hero looking fucking great! That's exactly what the Local Fans wanted: they wanted the Local Hero to look gets.

 

Look... I'll give the most obvious example I can point to. Folks should go watch the Backlund vs Harley match from MSG.

 

I'm sure that lots of people would have liked to have seen Harley do more Stuff in it. *I* certainly did, because Harley has that Great Big Book Of Moves that would be wonderful in trading bombs with Backlund. The thing is... the match was booked/worked/laid out for Backlund to be the Local Hero and Race to be the Touring NWA Champ, which means for them to do a match that the Local Fans would eat up. Yes, there is a short segment when they lose the MSG Fans through repitition. But it's relatively short in a 35 minute match where the fans before and after it are Eating The Shit Up.

 

Disappointing to a Harley Fan who wants to see more moves? Sure.

 

Disappointing to a Fan who might want a 2/3 fall match where they could exchange falls (like Backlund-Inoki II) that spaces out the match a bit more interesting? Sure.

 

Disappointing to an MSG Backlund Fan? Given the pops down the stretch and at the end, it would appear no... except... maybe...

 

That Bob didn't win the NWA Title when he was kicking Harley's ass.

 

Wait... what's that?

 

Standard NWA Touring Champ Formula with the NWA Champ getting his ass kicked, bitching and stooging, but keeping the belt because of those sucky NWA Rules.

 

Bingo.

 

A formula that Ric nailed to a T in his touring days.

 

 

But the bottom line was that he was beatable. He was champion through being the dirtiest player in the game, not the best wrestler.

Except that Ric didn't usually retain his title by being "dirty". He usually retained it by some nonsense in the NWA Rule Book. Far too often because the Face did something wrong.

 

It's not like Ric was winning a ton of his matches in the fashion that Randy Savage beat Tito to win the IC Title: international object to the head, and then hiding the evidence.

 

Ric as often just fluked his way to retaining the title.

 

Take the two big title matches with Kerry in 1982. How did the "dirtiest player in the game" retain his title in those?

 

 

John

[ohtani's jacket]

I think wrestling is closer to film (or TV) than it is real sports. Real sports don't have "characters" in the same way. Sure, you'll get your Jose Mourinhos, Brian Cloughs and , but they are exceptions and they are real people doing real jobs. They aren't artificial constructs designed to elicit cheers or boos (well, I say that, but Mourinho is as close to a heel as you'll get in real sports).

 

There is no moral element in real sports. There is no narrative element in real sports. Moral issues can crop up and the media can create narratives around certain matches, but it isn't the same.

 

Titles are won and lost on the pitch, yes, but scores are no settled. One guy doesn't get revenge on the guy who kidnapped his daughter by saying "I'm going to beat you at West Brom ON SATURDAY! And when I score that goal I'm gonna be doing it for Stephanie!" It just doesn't happen.

 

The narrative arcs are from tv and film.

Wrestling has always been like a cousin to sports. It may be the blacksheep of the family or the cousin you don't tell the girlfriend's family about when you ask for her hand in marriage, but wrestling and sports elicit the same emotions in folks. Yes, wrestling borrows narrative elements from film and television but as a direct comparison with film and television it's a complete failure. Wrestling is far closer to the narrative element found in real sports than it is to film and television, and if you don't believe there's a narrative element in real sports take a look at this -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcdUn34PnmU I don't know about you, but I'm excited. Sport is all about human drama and the way we express that drama is through narrative. As sports fans we all have our favourite teams or athletes and teams we hate and we all go through the full gamut of emotions from joy to despair. Wrestling feeds off those emotions and is able to control and manipulate them. I think you'll find that wrestling is closer to sporting themes than film and television themes as wrestling simply cannot express the majority of things that film and television does. Wrestling does morality well and in particular the theme of justice and injustice, but ultimately it has to convey a theme that can be expressed through violence or physical action and that's extremely limiting compared to what a film or television writer can do.

 

On the other hand, there are a lot of soap opera aspects to pro-wrestling and we shouldn't ignore them just because they're not enjoyable even on a B-film level. The idea that wrestling is like sports is legitimate in my view, but it's also an ideal that a lot of us want to see happen. We've already established that wrestling falls short of the mark on most occasions and that the majority of matches are a failure from a narrative aspects so I honestly think that wrestling should be argued for on its own merits and not by making comparions to film, television and sports. The question people should really be asking themeselves is "was this a good match compared to the thousands of other pro-wrestling matches I've seen?"

[Frankensteiner]

I agree with jdw. There's way way way too much credit and overanalysis given to Flair for what are simply crowd pleasing spots.

[ohtani's jacket]

I agree with jdw. There's way way way too much credit and overanalysis given to Flair for what are simply crowd pleasing spots.

I think we all understand the spots. We just disagree that the psychology is Flair being a dumbass bitch.

[NintendoLogic]

This is why wrestlers "playing their role well" is important. Undersized wrestlers should be underdogs when facing larger opponents. No one wants to see Rey as a dominating power wrestler, and no one wants to see Big Show as an overmatched, sympathy-laden underdog.

This plays into something I've been saying for a while now. I think the Cena backlash is largely rooted in the fact that he works so many matches against guys who are smaller than him. Working from underneath against Umaga is quite different from working from underneath against Shawn Michaels. Recall that during Cena's first feud as champion, against JBL, the crowd was behind him. They started to turn on him during the Jericho feud, and the full-blown backlash began during the Angle feud. But later on, I recall he got the crowd back behind him during his feuds with Umaga and Khali. And they seemed to be behind him last night when he saved Zack Ryder from being dragged to Hell by Kane.

[NintendoLogic]

Like I said before, if it hits, game over. If it doesn't, it isn't like Flair is a goner. It has all upside and little downside.

What to make of the figure-four then? He almost never won with it, and on at least one occasion (vs. Steamboat at Chi-Town Rumble), going for it was directly responsible for him losing the title.

[Chess Knight]

I agree with jdw. There's way way way too much credit and overanalysis given to Flair for what are simply crowd pleasing spots.

I've been enjoying what's been wrote here a ton, but I'm more inclined to go this way as well. I can understand why Flair's spots and the logic behind are discussed (esp. when you watch something and wonder why in the hell Ric would even try it), but some of it is just to "give the crowd what they want" from a non-kayfabe standpoint. I don't exactly remember where I read this, but Flair said he did the same stuff over and over because he saw Ray Stevens live as a fan (or youngster wrestler) and was disappointed because Stevens didn't use his signature stuff. Ric wouldn't want a person leaving the show saying "I really wish I saw Flair get tossed off of the rope like at the Great American Bash" or something.

[goodhelmet]

He won the title back from Dusty Rhodes in 1986 using the Figure-4.

 

Anyway, Loss and I were talking today and I feel the need to clarify something that was brought up. I believe Ric Flair when he siad he wanted to get his shit in and make sure the fans saw his shit. I am not disputing that. I am disuputing the idea that as a fan, it always felt like Flair was getting his shit in. It didn't, at least not to me. Look at the 80s sets. Most of the matches so far are Flair and the local hero going toe to toe. They aren't simply "Flair being a bitch who saves at the end. Many times, the local hero fucks up and Flair exploits the mistake going on the attack. Opportunist. Pretty smart work most of the time and the last wrestler I would label as a dumb weak bitch.

[jdw]

Look at the 80s sets. Most of the matches so far are Flair and the local hero going toe to toe. They aren't simply "Flair being a bitch who saves at the end. Many times, the local hero fucks up and Flair exploits the mistake going on the attack. Opportunist. Pretty smart work most of the time and the last wrestler I would label as a dumb weak bitch.

08/82: Kerry kicks the shit out of Ric, gets screwed out of the NWA Title by the NWA Ref

12/82: Ric bitches out to Hayes, Kerry takes cage door off skull, Ric still can't pin Kerry, Kerry even makes monster comeback!

 

 

Wait... did I forget the dumb ass Ric Comes Off The Top Into The Claw spot?

 

Ric exploits Kerry's fuck up (trusting Hayes to be the ref) by... still looking weaker than Kerry at the end of the match eating the discuss punch.

 

I get the feeling that the only wrestlers folks think are weak bitch wrestlers are the Mulkey Brothers.

 

John

[jdw]

He won the title back from Dusty Rhodes in 1986 using the Figure-4.

That would be after Tully destroyed the knee with the chairshot. Hell, Dusty didn't even quit to the figure four. He passed out.

 

John

[jdw]

I think wrestling is closer to film (or TV) than it is real sports. Real sports don't have "characters" in the same way. Sure, you'll get your Jose Mourinhos, Brian Cloughs and , but they are exceptions and they are real people doing real jobs. They aren't artificial constructs designed to elicit cheers or boos (well, I say that, but Mourinho is as close to a heel as you'll get in real sports).

Heels in life aren't "artificial constructs designed to elicit cheers or boos" - they simply are people/things that are disliked and elicit boos and/or are hated.

 

George Bush is, to the majority of people in the world, a big giant heel. Not just outside the US, but even in the US where he left offsive with monsterous unfavorability numbers.

 

You'll find that the biggest heels in real life are vastly bigger heels than their fictional counterpoints: Jack the Ripper, Stalin, [Godwin's Law], The Bankers, OBL, etc. Ric Flair is a pissant compared to them.

 

In turn, the biggest heels in sports are much bigger than goofballs like Flair. How many people watched the highest rated Raw or TNA last year? Compare that with the number of people who watched the NBA Final, were there was a clear Monster Heel Team and Players (Lebron and the Heat) that drew well even opposite a team and player that aren't really strong draws (Dirk and the Mavs). The NBA's wet dream Final last year? Lakers vs Heat, with the Monster Heel Team against a player who is a Big Face in the 2nd largest market in the NBA... and a Monster Heel in every other market. Hell, Kobe draw monster ratings the year before against the Celts.

 

The Yanks have that Monster Heel / Local Face thing going on, and more people would watch the Yanks in the Series than the Brewers.

 

Ronaldo and Real Madrid are heels... to everyone but their own fans.

 

ManU are heels, as are Chelsea... as are ManCity... to everyone but their own fans.

 

Maradonna was a heel to an entire country (England), while the rest of the world generally thought England deservered the fucking Maradona gave them as payback for the shaddiness of the 1966 Copa.

 

Sports has tons of heels.

 

 

There is no moral element in real sports.

Saints vs Sinners?

 

 

There is no narrative element in real sports.

WTF? There wasn't a narrative in the EPL last season of ManU trying to win their 19th title to go past Pool and turn the years of taunts back at the scousers?

 

There isn't a narrative every time Messi takes the pitch for Argentina with people wondering if he'll ever win a major tourney to make a stronger case for where he fits into the list of all-time great players?

 

Have you watched the Classicos the last three years, where Madrid seems to be getting more and more bent out of shape over Barca beating them?

 

I think a number of us have pointed out over the years how sports come up with more compelling narratives and storylines *naturally* than all the great and creative minds in pro wrestling can come up with.

 

Moral issues can crop up and the media can create narratives around certain matches, but it isn't the same.

Why isn't it the same? One is fake morality, while the other is real?

 

 

Titles are won and lost on the pitch, yes, but scores are no settled. One guy doesn't get revenge on the guy who kidnapped his daughter by saying "I'm going to beat you at West Brom ON SATURDAY! And when I score that goal I'm gonna be doing it for Stephanie!" It just doesn't happen.

In the 1985 NBA Finals, the Lakers got revenge on the Celtics for a brutally painful loss in the 1984 Final where Magic had a horrible series. What more, the 1985 Final opened with the infamous (in LA) "Memorial Day Massacre": a 148-114 Boston win in the Garden where Jabbar was run raggad by Robert Parrish. In Game 2, the Lakers turned around the series, and Jabbar turned back the clock.

 

Or how about the Bad Boy Pistons later in the decade: choking in 1987 to the Celtic in the Easter Conference Final, then getting through the Celtics the following year before choking in the 1988 NBA Final to the Lakers, then finally breaking through in 1989 to win it all... getting revenge over the Lakers.

 

Or the 1991 Eastern Conference Final, and the story that led to it.

 

Or Jordan in the 1992 Final turning Clyde Drexler into his personal bitch?

 

Or Jordan in the 1993 Final showing who the real MVP?

 

Or Joran against the Jazz a few years later when the voters decided to give the MVP to someone else?

 

Aw hell... do we really want to remind Will of the storyline of David Robinson vs Hakeem in a certain Western Conference Final when the Dream seemed a little insulted that Robinson was the MVP?

 

Wasn't there a little storyline this year about whether Albert would resign with the Cardinals... the best player of his generation... which ran all the way through the World Series.

 

Wrestling storylines are laughable compared to real life sports.

 

John

[Jingus]

John, I see your point about storylines and morality in sports, but I don't think it's a good comparison to rassling. You sound kinda like Meltzer trying to justify how MMA = Pro Wres. Fiction and reality do share some common elements, but they're still not even remotely the same thing.

[ohtani's jacket]

Fans don't have a problem with a Face saying he's the best, and that the gold around his waste proves that he is... then going out and beating up the heel.

 

On the other hand, NWA territorial fans wanted to see the Local Hero win the title, and beat up the Champ. Well, since they weren't usually winning the title, the Heel Champ goes over the top in making the face look strong... and to a degree bitches out to the face. This wasn't unique to Flair: it was evident in Thesz matches, though Lou didn't take it to the extreme that Ric did.

 

Local Fans didn't think Ric was the best. They thought Jerry or Kerry or Tommy was the best.

I think it was fairly obvious that I was referring to Flair as the heel champ. The local fans wanted to see Jerry or Kerry or Tommy kick Flair's ass and part of that narrative of kicking Flair's ass was a fairly simple arc of Flair going from being cocksure ahead of the match to desperate by the end of it. Within that narrative arc it makes sense for Flair to be caught off the top and slammed to the canvas as it's a strong visual image. The fact that Wrestler Ric claims to be the best wrestler in the world is all the more reason to do it. I mean the formula was pretty simple: Flair comes into a territory, baits the local fans about how he's better than their man, local guy ends up being a tougher proposition than Flair gave him credit for, Flair gets his ass kicked and leaves humiliated but still managing to hold onto the belt somehow. Sometimes he'd tweak it a bit and sometimes he'd play it a bit more straight, but basically it went something like that. Within that context, what does it matter if he's caught off the top? The whole thrust of the match is to disprove Flair's claims of being better than anybody. What are you worried about a low percentage play for? It sounds like the type of criticism Gorilla Monsoon would make.

 

You're projecting here. Did it ever look like Jerry or Kerry were intimidated by Ric? They just thought he was an asshole who needed an ass kicking.

They wouldn't exactly be local heroes if they let Flair intimidate them would they? Since when did they have to be intimidated for it to be a form of intimidation? Christ by that rationale no heel has ever cut an intimidating promo. Of course the babyface is going to stand up to it.

 

The beauty of Flair was that he *didn't* know all the tricks. For all his bullshit about being the dirtiest player in the game, most of his dirty shit typically backfired.

 

Flair = Wil E. Coyote

 

Except he wasn't elaborate about his cheating: it was first grade level bullshit.

Wil E. Coyote was a cartoon coyote who failed time and time again to catch and eat a bird. I'm pretty sure that Ric Flair managed to capture the title on one or two occasions and we were led to believe that in the 80s he ate very well. Besides, we're supposed to be sympathetic to Wil E. Coyote because the Road Runner is an annoying little shit. I don't think Ric is meant to have our sympathy. Are you trying to say that Flair never won a match by holding the tights or putting his foot on the ropes? Ric's bullshit backfiring is again a pretty obvious narrative element but it hardly makes him a dumbass bitch now does it? If that's the standard for being a dumbass bitch then his opponents were far dumber.

 

Most of the time, Ric would go up extremely slowly to the top to give the opponent lots of time to come over and toss him off. If you look at people doing things in a "blind panic"... well, panic typically has a sense of urgency to it. Ric didn't do much of anything with urgency. While not as slow as Harley, Ric was "methodical" on offense or when trying to do something to an opponent. He wasn't exactly Tiger Mask there.

All right, perhaps "blind panic" is the wrong choice of words, but I don't think he's meant to be thinking straight. When he does the turnbuckle flip and sprints down the apron is he meant to be thinking like the best wrestler in the world or in a state of panic? His reaction is to try to come off the top but 99% of the top he's knocked off the apron. But hey, it's a spot that tells the crowd Flair's reeling and they've all seen it a hundred times and recognise and love it.

 

Except that it unravels from the *start*... and in match after match after match.

Ah c'mon, he didn't start every match bumping and selling.

 

You're a Dallas Fan.

 

You watch Kerry kick the living shit out of Ric on 08/15/82, and Ric not surviving due to a "plan" by due to (in the storyline) that NWA Ref.

 

Is it any surprises that Emperor Ric's shit unravels and he has no clothes on 12/25/82?

What have a couple of screwy finishes in Dallas got to do with Flair's character? We don't know what would have happened in each match had it gone beyond the screwy finish. The finishes are external factors and not character defining. I'm sure the Dallas fans knew that Emperor Ric had no clothes. The finishes are designed to annoy the shit out of them while providing Kerry the moral victory.

 

Ric's matches aren't isolated events. They're not Do The Right Thing where there isn't a sequel or an movie earlier in the series. They're freaking James Bond movies. There are 20+ of them. It's not exactly a revelation by the 12th of them that Bond is a British agent and has some dude named Q giving him cool toys to play with.

Sure, the plot changes but the story stays the same. I don't think I've argued that Flair matches are isolated events. The argument is about whether Flair matches show him to be a dumbass weak bitch.

 

We've used both sports and movie analogies for Ric. He's a bitching, stooging heel... which is a movie analogy.

How is being a bitching, stooging heel a movie analogy? It's an archetype and existed long before there was ever wrestling or movies.

 

Which is 300+ times a year, multiple times a match?

 

I'm not buying the analogy. The Face First Flop isn't panicking. It's bitching and stooging. Getting tossed off the top isn't panicking. It's a stooge heel spot, just like when Arn comes off the top to try to his a "something" on a prone opponent and takes a boot to the mug: it's stooging, with Arn selling it wonderfully.

There's a huge and obvious difference between when Flair would trick an opponent by stooging and the stooging late in the match where he's reeling. Are you honestly trying to say that Ric Flair never panicked in a match?

 

James Brown gets "injured" and folks wanted him to leave? You're confused there.

 

The Godfather was working his ass off all show long and wore himself out (tired/exhaustion), doesn't think he go on, his sidekick tries to lead him off... his background singers and the *fans* encourage him to go on performing... and Brown goes on performing. The fans didn't want to see James leave: they wanted him to STAY.

I guess you missed that et cetera there.

 

Except you were earlier saying that Ric had a plan to keep the title, which he did. Hard to say that's choking.

Considering that Wrestler Ric almost lost the title on a nightly basis in city after city you'd have to say he was a choker. He may have managed to escape with the title but it was a far cry from what he claimed he'd do.

 

I think that's the big thing in trying to think too hard about Ric's work and defending it: one ends up circling around on one's own argument while circling the wagon.

What is there to defend? There's no need to defend anything if people don't make claims like Flair being a dumbass bitch.

 

Ric the Worker and Ric the Wrestler never put as much thought into his work as the people defending it. Worker and Wrestler's level if thought is frankly much closer to exactly what I've described it:

 

Get and keep the crowd into the match by Keep Things Moving Along, Got Stuff To Do and Bitching & Stooging to Put Over The Face.

 

Ric works simplistic match with simplistic storylines (if they go beyond Strong Face vs Bitch Ric). Ric isn't a deep enough thinker to dream up, "This is where I start to panic the rest of the match". Christ... he probably doesn't even think in terms of "desperation". It's just Stuff to him.

This goes against your definition of psychology being the why and the thought process behind what the wrestlers do. Now you're saying it's just stuff. There's no reason to be so noncommittal. I know you're reluctant to give wrestlers too much credit in case you overstep the mark of how much you think wrestlers think about wrestling, but if Ric Flair could articulate in promo after promo a basic narrative for his character/match I think we can take for granted that he had some idea what his stuff meant. Then again, who cares whether Flair could put a name to it? What does it matter if he doesn't think in terms of desperation if he's acting desperate?

 

Seriously... I think all of us going go to the library and pull a random Dick & Jane book off the shelf and find more layers of storytelling and themes than Ric put into his matches.

We've already covered wrestling's lack of storytelling depth. The things Ric did in the ring weren't complicated.

 

Ric and his matches were great because he did so much Stuff, kept it moving along, made his opponents who the fans loved look great by bitching and stooging and selling for them, was tremendously charismatic and theatrical, and had a fine sense of drama.

 

Key word in there:

 

Great

You just said that Flair isn't a deep enough thinker to dream things up and that it's just stuff to him. Now you're saying he had a fine sense of drama.

[JerryvonKramer]

Ronaldo and Real Madrid are heels... to everyone but their own fans.

 

ManU are heels, as are Chelsea... as are ManCity... to everyone but their own fans.

This is very silly.

 

Football works with a home and away dynamic. A fan supports one team and one team only for life, he dislikes all other teams but reserves special hatred for key rivals.

 

For example, if you are a Tottenham Hotspur fan you HATE Arsenal. If you are a Real Madrid fan you HATE Barcelona, and so on. There is no moral element. It's just the way it is and has always been.

 

Wrestling just doesn't work like that. EVERYONE in the crowd, with the exception of weird people (like me), cheers Hogan and boos Heenan, Andre, DiBiase, etc.

 

IN GENERAL, people are prone to like teams who play attractive football (Arsenal, Barcelona), or who are managed by individuals who -- for whatever reason -- have endeared themselves (let's say Chelsea under Ancellotti last year).

 

People are prone to dislike negative teams (Stoke, Inter under Mourinho, any side managed by Sam Allerdyce, any side managed by Alex McLiesh) and particular players (Robbie Savage, Joey Barton) and particular managers (Jose Mourinho - although secretly everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, loves him -- here in England they've been gagging for him to come back ever since he left, he's just too much fun).

 

There is no real moral element there. There's a vague aesthetic thing about the game "being played the right way", but it's not the same thing as what you get in wrestling. There is no real evil there.

 

Even with Man City this season, no one really hates them. I think a lot of us would secretly like to see them win the title, because 1) it's someone different, 2) it'd be nice for their long suffering fans, 3) they are FUN - Mancini is cool and dealt with Tevez really well, Balotelli is really funny, Silva is really good, etc.

 

Maradonna was a heel to an entire country (England), while the rest of the world generally thought England deservered the fucking Maradona gave them as payback for the shaddiness of the 1966 Copa.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the England 1966 World Cup side were heels to anyone. I mean ... look at them.

 

 

Maradonna got "heel heat" for sure because of the hand of God incident, but he is also seen as an absolute legend in this country and is as much remembered for the first goal he scored in that match when he ran the entire defence on his own.

 

It's just not the same thing at all.

 

Maradonna and the Iron Sheik just aren't comparible.

 

One of the FEW times wrestling has aped real sports was the Hart Foundation in 97. There you had them cheered in Canada and booed in the US. You couldn't say Bret Hart was a real heel, but he was booed in one place and cheered in another. That's the way sport is 95% of the time.

 

The big difference is that in real sports, there is noone there calling any shots. Stuff just happens.

 

In wrestling, someone has put the Iron Sheik there to be booed by, let's face it, xenophobic, right-wing American fans as "one of them damn Arabs what gone done and kidnapped our peoples".

 

Someone has put Slaughter or Hogan there to defend American values.

 

Someone has put Ric Flair there to represent all the things that your average redneck resents.

 

Someone has put Dusty Rhodes there to represent all the things that your average redneck can relate to.

 

In football -- and in any sport -- that just isn't the case. That's why the Premier League has players from all over the world. If someone was there trying to represent the values of your typical chap from Manchester or Liverpool, would they have so many foreign players?

 

Wrestling and real sports are COMPLETELY INCOMPARIBLE in my view, when it comes to morality and fandom.

 

It's far far closer to the Rocky films than it is to the entire history of football.

 

 

WTF? There wasn't a narrative in the EPL last season of ManU trying to win their 19th title to go past Pool and turn the years of taunts back at the scousers?

Do you honestly think Park Ji Sung or Nani or even Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs give a flying fuck about that? Do you think Luis Suarez was up at night thinking about it? Or even Kenny Dalglish?

 

I am sure that it was a big PERSONAL goal for Sir Alex Ferguson, but outside of him, the historians and TV channels trying to make things as interesting as possible, no one really cares.

 

There ARE narratives there, but they are created by the media to CREATE INTEREST in what's going on. It's not the same thing as a wrestling angle. It's not the same thing as Randy Savage trying to murder Jake Roberts for wrecking his wedding.

 

Again, that is much much loser to ... why don't we use Raging Bull this time.

 

Wrestling angles are more like the plots of movies than the sorts of stories that happen in real sports.

 

There isn't a narrative every time Messi takes the pitch for Argentina with people wondering if he'll ever win a major tourney to make a stronger case for where he fits into the list of all-time great players?

It's a question for sure, but it's not really a narrative is it? It's probably not what Messi is thinking when he's playing. His manager is not saying to him "now, Lionel, think about your place in the history books here lad".

 

Have you watched the Classicos the last three years, where Madrid seems to be getting more and more bent out of shape over Barca beating them?

Well, yes, it's one of the greatest feuds ever. And Mourinho, the greatest tactical mind of his generation, trying to overcome the humilation of the 5-0 against the stylish Guardiola and the greatest team in the history of football is a great "story".

 

Plus you've got the old right-wing capitalist Spanish Madrid vs. the more liberal, socialist, Basque people-owned Barcelona angle.

 

But El Classico is a pretty exceptional case.

 

I think a number of us have pointed out over the years how sports come up with more compelling narratives and storylines *naturally* than all the great and creative minds in pro wrestling can come up with.

I don't disagree with that, but the narratives are always created from the outside and then put on the teams.

 

There is a big difference between the MEDIA or ME AND YOU looking at a game and seeing all the "compelling narratives" around it and a booker designing a situation where one guy is cheered and another is booed to SELL TICKETS.

 

On which point:

 

Football fans will watch their team no matter what.

Football fans will watch Match of the Day on saturday night, no matter what.

 

The stories don't matter. They are buying their ticket, their sky subscription, their time investment yada yada. Season on season on season, it's just part of what they do.

 

Wrestling isn't like that. Fans need a hook to part with their money. It's much more like movies or a tv series. There has to be something that keeps you coming back.

 

I mean look at me and a number of other people on this board. I haven't watched WWE since 2004. I've outlined my reasons elsewhere.

 

Football fans just don't stop watching if there are a few boring games or if their favourite players retire. They watch NO MATTER WHAT.

 

Do you see the big difference? Wrestling NEEDS angles and storylines and they are created internally to sell tickets. Football doesn't need angles and storylines BECAUSE IT HAS A GUARANTEED AUDIENCE and the narratives that crop up happen organically and are created mostly outside of the game.

 

It's a completely different situation.

[ohtani's jacket]

Obviously, wrestlers create their narratives whereas narrative in sport is whatever's happening to the athletes, but athletes are usually aware of the narrative that frames their matches. The All Blacks, for example, were aware of New Zealand's history at Rugby World Cups prior to last year's tournament. They knew that New Zealand had been waiting 20 years to win back the Cup and that the rugby world considered them chokers. Athletes know what's being said and written about them and often use it for motivation. That's about where the comparison ends, but wrestling being a faux sport often borrows ideas from sport. It's a bit silly to argue that wrestling borrows more from Rocky than sport when Rocky is a sports movie that was supposedly inspired by Rocky Marciano and the fight between Ali and Chuck Wepner. It's also silly to claim that there's no sense of morality in sport or any soap opera stuff. There's instances of just about everything in sport as you'd well know being an English football fan.

 

Anyway, as I said in my earlier post it's worthless making comparisons with sport or movies. Wrestling is wrestling. Somewhere out there there's probably someone who watches professional wrestling but never watches sports or movies and I'm sure they get it. It's meant to be archetypal or universal not pinching stuff from here and there.

[Matt D]

Obviously, the purpose of the figure-four is a set up move making it harder to kick out of the cheap roll-up later.

 

(I'm kidding, mostly).

 

Also, I don't watch sports regularly (not even MMA), but I do watch wrestling. The serialized elements appeal to me just like they do on a show like lost or in comics, and I definitely see a lot of what happens as wrestling as symbolic/mythic. what matters isn't how it relates to basketball or boxing but that it stays consistent within itself. Wrestling has way more in common with Rocky (or a longform serialized TV show ABOUT Rocky, like some of the sports anime, I would assume, than actual boxing.

[Childs]

It's moronic to claim that narrative is unimportant to the way sports are sold and consumed. That narrative might be generated differently in the NBA than it is in wrestling, but there are absolutely strong elements of morality. If you don't think LeBron James was a heel and Dirk Nowitzki a babyface in the 2011 Finals, I'm not sure what to tell you.

 

I can't speak to UK football culture, but in the U.S., there are different layers of sports fandom. There is the level Jerry alluded to on which fans support their local teams through thick and thin. But there's also an enormous pool of general sports fans who are more apt to tune in for big events if there's some sort of melodrama behind them (Red Sox finally win the World Series, LeBron goes down in the Finals, X challenger tries to shut Floyd Mayweather's mouth, etc.) Just because the drama occurs more organically in sports, that does not make it less intrinsic to their appeal. Wrestlers are often trying to recreate the sort of narrative excitement that arises naturally in sports.

[Matt D]

Wrestling should be better than these other things because in wrestling, they can shape and control the narrative.

[jdw]

Wrestling should be better than these other things because in wrestling, they can shape and control the narrative.

Exactly. This is a point that I, and I suspect others, have been hammering for a decade and a half. Pro wrestling has no excuse for doing as shitty of a job on narrative, drama and storytelling relative to sports because pro wrestling can control it far better.

 

The Saints and the Pack have won the last two Super Bowls. Pitt and New England have gone to seven of the last 10 Super Bowls, winning five of them.

 

If there were a Rogers vs Brees and Brady vs Big Ben pair of Conference Championships, then any of the four match ups in the Super Bowl, it would be a massive natural story.

 

The NFL can't write it to happen. It just does happen on occasion.

 

Manning vs Brees a few years back just happened. Manning vs Brady was a long term storyline, with a massive monkey building up on Manning's shoulder. The Rams in 2000, the Greatest Show On Turf, just developed out of nowhere doing the course of a season, and actually had the payoff of a Super Bowl. Two years later, the Rams were back... and we didn't quite get until the next year that we saw the dawn of a new Hall of Famer in that Rams-Pats Super Bowl.

 

Every sports has stuff like this... and it's often just "shit happens" stuff.

 

John

[jdw]

It's moronic to claim that narrative is unimportant to the way sports are sold and consumed. That narrative might be generated differently in the NBA than it is in wrestling, but there are absolutely strong elements of morality. If you don't think LeBron James was a heel and Dirk Nowitzki a babyface in the 2011 Finals, I'm not sure what to tell you.

I almost hate calling them "heel" and "face" because it gives the impression that the NBA and Media actually pushed them in a pro wrestling fashion. That really isn't the case.

 

Instead, nearly the entire basketball world (other than in Miami) decided they hated Lebron when he jumped to Miami from CLE and joined hands with Wade and Bosh. It just... happened. Because sports fans do work up a lot of hate towards teams/players they don't like.

 

John

[jdw]

John, I see your point about storylines and morality in sports, but I don't think it's a good comparison to rassling. You sound kinda like Meltzer trying to justify how MMA = Pro Wres. Fiction and reality do share some common elements, but they're still not even remotely the same thing.

I could do the same with Movies and Pro Wrestling. It doesn't mean that Movies = Pro Wrestling. Or Movies and Sports, and it wouldn't mean that Movies = Sports.

 

It's just to point out that the notion that Sports do not create and have narrative and storylines is... quite wrong.

 

John

[goodhelmet]

Still on the Flair kick, I want to respond wiith a couple of observations... Flair didn't get the shit beat out of him in the August 1982 match. Kerry got the shine in the first fall and established he was on the champ's level but the 2nd and 3rd falls displayed a war between two guys. Also, the cage match wasn't about Flair at all... he took a back seat to the silly referee business. If anything, the referee bullshit was more important than anything else happening in the ring.

 

Oh, just watched Slamboree 94 for the yearbook and Flair beat Windham clean with a cross body off the top... just saying.

[jdw]

This is very silly.

 

Football works with a home and away dynamic. A fan supports one team and one team only for life, he dislikes all other teams but reserves special hatred for key rivals.

 

For example, if you are a Tottenham Hotspur fan you HATE Arsenal. If you are a Real Madrid fan you HATE Barcelona, and so on. There is no moral element. It's just the way it is and has always been.

 

 

Wrestling just doesn't work like that. EVERYONE in the crowd, with the exception of weird people (like me), cheers Hogan and boos Heenan, Andre, DiBiase, etc.

You're contradicting yourself here.

 

If you're a Spurs Fan, you hate the Gunners.

 

If you're a Hogan Fan, you hate the Brain, Andre and the Million Dollar Man.

 

Same thing. You are a Fan of one side in a game, and you root against / hate / dislike the other team.

 

 

IN GENERAL, people are prone to like teams who play attractive football (Arsenal, Barcelona), or who are managed by individuals who -- for whatever reason -- have endeared themselves (let's say Chelsea under Ancellotti last year).

No. People are prone to like the teams / stars the Like. There are all sorts of reasons for it. It can be their father or brother or friend was a fan. It could be that they have a friend who likes the team, and they're tired of listening to their fandom so they pick a *different* team to root for. It could be a player they like being on the team that they like, so they end up liking the team. It could be as simple as the color of the kit, and then liking them over the year.

 

True story: I have a friend whose son isn't a Giants fan like they are, but is a Packers fan because he liked Green when he was a kid... then started liking Farve when he got old enough to know the players... now likes Rogers. It all started because he liked the Green Team.

 

I told the story of Hoback's kid liking Hulk Hogan. The kid doesn't even really like pro wrestling, but because his Old Man hates Hogan, his pre-teen way to drive his Old Man nuts was to like Hogan. Brilliant wise ass kid.

 

I follow ManU because of what we could say is "storyline": (i) Heysel, and (ii) getting back into futbol in 1992-93. It would take some explaining to get across what I mean by that, and I suspect I've written about it either here or on tOA in the past.

 

So there are lots of reasons to like a team / player. Don't think so narrow or project why you like a team or player onto why others do.

 

 

People are prone to dislike negative teams (Stoke, Inter under Mourinho, any side managed by Sam Allerdyce, any side managed by Alex McLiesh) and particular players (Robbie Savage, Joey Barton) and particular managers (Jose Mourinho - although secretly everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, loves him -- here in England they've been gagging for him to come back ever since he left, he's just too much fun).

Except that... Chelsea Fans loved Jose. Inter Fans loved Jose. Madridistas Fans will love Jose if he has them at the top of La Liga at the end of the season. *I* would love Jose if he coached the Red Devils.

 

 

Even with Man City this season, no one really hates them. I think a lot of us would secretly like to see them win the title, because 1) it's someone different, 2) it'd be nice for their long suffering fans, 3) they are FUN - Mancini is cool and dealt with Tevez really well, Balotelli is really funny, Silva is really good, etc.

Actually, lots of people hate ManCity because they have the Sheik's ££££££££. Same reason a lot of people didn't like ManU in the 90s when they started winning and were spending tons of £££££££, and the Yankees are hated for spending tons of $$$$$ when the Blackburns of the world are broke.

 

I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that the England 1966 World Cup side were heels to anyone. I mean ... look at them.

Which is my point: folks in England don't have a grasp of how the rest of the futbol world views them. One of the more eye opening futbol things I ever did was reading a lot of rec.sports.soccer back in 1996-98 where you got a real good taste of how roughly 90% of non-English fans thought the English were a bunch of jerkoffs on so many levels that it wasn't even funny. The 10% who didn't think that? Yanks who were fans of the EPL. Everyone else really had a shitload of fun pointing out flaws of English futbol, players, teams and fans.

 

Of course in England, 1966 is viewed as a saintly event.

 

Maradonna got "heel heat" for sure because of the hand of God incident, but he is also seen as an absolute legend in this country and is as much remembered for the first goal he scored in that match when he ran the entire defence on his own.

I watched the game live, so I remember both well.

 

I also remember in both 1998 and 2002 England still gripping about it.

 

Maradonna is a heel to England. You can still admire a heel. I think Real is a heel team. Doesn't mean I can't be in awe of some of their performances this season and last. I just happen to enjoy stuff like Barca bouncing them in the CL and beating them in the Spannish Super Cup earlier this year. The second was better to watch because the quality of futbol was off the charts, but I confess to also enjoying Barca driving Real nuts in the CL with all sorts of gamesmanship.

 

Maradonna and the Iron Sheik just aren't comparible.

Maradonna and Hollywood Hogan are.

 

 

The big difference is that in real sports, there is noone there calling any shots. Stuff just happens.

 

In wrestling, someone has put the Iron Sheik there to be booed by, let's face it, xenophobic, right-wing American fans as "one of them damn Arabs what gone done and kidnapped our peoples".

You didn't happen to be in Los Angeles in 1984 and see the jingoism.

 

Granted, since the Mega Heel stayed home, there wasn't real xenophobia. Except... the "fans" went out of their way to "cheer" for the countries that broke the Heel's boycott. Except of course when things like Team USA in gymnastics.

 

 

In football -- and in any sport -- that just isn't the case. That's why the Premier League has players from all over the world. If someone was there trying to represent the values of your typical chap from Manchester or Liverpool, would they have so many foreign players?

You must have missed the Monkey and Banana stuff.

 

 

Do you honestly think Park Ji Sung or Nani or even Rio Ferdinand and Ryan Giggs give a flying fuck about that? Do you think Luis Suarez was up at night thinking about it? Or even Kenny Dalglish?

I'm getting a feeling that I'm wasting my time talking sports with you since you don't actually seem to be following sports.

 

Manchester United players share their elation at winning 19th league title with fans on Twitter: Manchester United’s delirious players shared their delight at helping the club to a record 19th title with millions of fans on Twitter as they celebrated into the early hours of Sunday morning.

 

Only Wayne Rooney, who preferred to celebrate at home with wife Coleen, was absent.

 

The 25 year-old posted a picture of the pair in their Prestbury home on his Twitter account on Sunday, but not being with his team-mates did not seem to stop the striker, scorer of the penalty which saw United pass Liverpool's record haul of titles, enjoying his achievement.

 

“A Scouser knocks Liverpool of there perch [sic],” he posted. “Haha. An evertoniian aswell. Yes. People. U can’t imagine how happy I am tonight. Believe.”

 

The forward, who had earlier chosen to use his chest hair to communicate his delight at reaching 19 titles, later expanded: “Utd til I die. Everton til I die. Believe. Come together. The beatles. Leg.”

Wayne Rooney shaves 19 into his chest hair as Man Utd stars tweet glee: Wayne Rooney found an unusual way to celebrate Manchester United's record-breaking Premier League title triumph - shaving '19' into his chest hair and posting a picture of it on Twitter

 

Rooney taunts Liverpool fans after clincing record 19th title

 

WAYNE ROONEY taunted Liverpool fans last night as Manchester United clinched their record-breaking 19th title – thanks to his second half penalty at Ewood Park.

 

United are now one ahead of their bitter rivals, and that left former Evertonian Rooney far from blue after a tough season on and off the pitch.

 

“After the year I’ve had, with its ups and downs, it was a big moment,” he said. “But I stepped up for the team and the kick went in.

 

“It’s an incredible feeling to get that 19th title to make us the most successful club of all time. And as an Everton fan, winning it is special.”

Ryan Giggs, a record-breaker himself after winning all 12 of United’s Premier League crowns, said the celebrations at the end showed how special this title is to the players.

 

“If you look at 20 years ago we were nowhere near Liverpool,” he said. “So to overturn that sort of deficit is a great credit to the club, to the manager and to the players that have been involved. It’s great to be in front of our biggest rivals."

You're bitter because we're more successful than you! Ferdinand hits out at fans of Manchester United's great rivals Liverpool

 

I could post another hundred links, pictures about "Comeback When You've Won 18", point to the 19 Times Champion products sold around the net... even on ManU's own website. Hell, I've got a 19 Times key chain from my Old Man as a Christmas gift because he, a YANK, enjoyed beating Pool's record so much last year.

 

Am I wasting time going through the rest of this when you don't even know one of the biggest storyline of English Football in the 2010-2011 season? :/

 

 

I am sure that it was a big PERSONAL goal for Sir Alex Ferguson, but outside of him, the historians and TV channels trying to make things as interesting as possible, no one really cares.

Yeah... except his players... and all real ManU Fans.

 

There ARE narratives there, but they are created by the media to CREATE INTEREST in what's going on. It's not the same thing as a wrestling angle. It's not the same thing as Randy Savage trying to murder Jake Roberts for wrecking his wedding.

No. There's a narrative of ManCity Fans to beat ManU after years of having to eat shit from them. The media isn't making it up: ManCity Fans *want* to beat ManU.

 

 

It's a question for sure, but it's not really a narrative is it? It's probably not what Messi is thinking when he's playing. His manager is not saying to him "now, Lionel, think about your place in the history books here lad".

Messi wants to win titles. It's well known.

 

We fans who follow him and also were lucky enough to watch Maradonna also having it in our heads: Maradona was a one man gang that got his team the Copa, and dragged them back to the final four years later. Can Messi be better than Mardona if he doesn't make his mark on a major national tourney?

 

Does he need to win? Netherlands didn't win in 1974, but it made enough of a mark that a certain someone gets talked in that very upper level.

 

This isn't just stuff that the Media talks about. *Fans* do. It's what sports fans talk about.

 

 

Well, yes, it's one of the greatest feuds ever. And Mourinho, the greatest tactical mind of his generation, trying to overcome the humilation of the 5-0 against the stylish Guardiola and the greatest team in the history of football is a great "story".

 

Plus you've got the old right-wing capitalist Spanish Madrid vs. the more liberal, socialist, Basque people-owned Barcelona angle.

 

But El Classico is a pretty exceptional case.

Not at all.

 

Come April and May we'll have Relegation storylines involving sad sack teams all over Europe. It's not just the nobility of football that have storylines, but the peasants and middle class as well.

 

El Classico is a rich one. But Wigan's battle up from the 3rd Division through three promotions to the EPL and now regular battle to stay up... that's a great storyline. It may mean nothing to fans of other teams, but to a historian it's pretty great... and to a Wigan Fan it's amazing and now dramatic as all hell trying to stay up.

 

 

I don't disagree with that, but the narratives are always created from the outside and then put on the teams.

My mind hurts.

 

Austin Rivers, Duke's young freshman starlet, was tweeting about his HATE of the North Carolina Tar Heels before he even got to Duke.

 

 

There is a big difference between the MEDIA or ME AND YOU looking at a game and seeing all the "compelling narratives" around it and a booker designing a situation where one guy is cheered and another is booed to SELL TICKETS.

You're wrong.

 

As a six year old, I learned to HATE Notre Dame football from my father, a USC Fan. And loved Anthony Davis torching them for six touchdowns:

 

 

As an either year old, I watched in horror as the Irish ran out to a 24-0 lead. Then... AD struck, and one of the legendary games in USC history unfolded:

 

 

Now in the other direction, Domers fucking HATE Trojans... and I'm sure if there are any Domers around here, they'd be able to point to their great storyline game, or games... of that whole damn streak of games where they beat the Trojans.

 

 

Football fans will watch their team no matter what.

 

Football fans will watch Match of the Day on saturday night, no matter what.

 

The stories don't matter. They are buying their ticket, their sky subscription, their time investment yada yada. Season on season on season, it's just part of what they do.

So why do ratings of games go up and down?

 

More Bama Fans watch their game against Auburn than their games against Kent State, North Texas and Georgia Southern.

 

ManU drew just 52,624, rather than 70K+ for their game on 11/30. Why? Carling Cup. Didn't mean as much to fans. I suspect that their ratings also move up and down given the opponent. ManU vs Blackburn doesn't draw the ratings that ManU vs Chelsea draws, even among ManU Fans.

 

Football fans just don't stop watching if there are a few boring games or if their favourite players retire. They watch NO MATTER WHAT.

You're wrong. Fans of sports, teams and players quite all the time. Ask any fan of NASCAR on this board about the ratings and attendance of the sport, and how even long time fans are dropping off.

 

There were several storylines with the LA Dodgers this year that impacted their fans watching the team. Look at the drop over the past several years:

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/LAD/attend.shtml

 

The Baltimore O's use to sellout every game. Check out what's happened there:

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/attend.shtml

 

I'm sure some O's fans could explain to you why... though I've followed it enough if we don't have any O's fans here.

 

 

Do you see the big difference? Wrestling NEEDS angles and storylines and they are created internally to sell tickets. Football doesn't need angles and storylines BECAUSE IT HAS A GUARANTEED AUDIENCE and the narratives that crop up happen organically and are created mostly outside of the game.

 

It's a completely different situation.

Only to someone who doesn't truly follow sports or understand them and Sports Fans. :/

 

I confess to being totally gobsmacked by your post.

 

John