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

[Loss]

Wrestling NEEDS angles and storylines and they are created internally to sell tickets.

A narrative yes, but not "You-punched-a-baby-in-a-parking-lot"-type stuff necessarily. Look at Japan. Definite angles -- some even ridiculously over the top -- but plenty of subdued stuff based on winning and losing too.

[NintendoLogic]

So jdw's a fan of ManU, Duke, and the Lakers? Dude...

[ohtani's jacket]

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.

In fairness to Jerry, narrative in overseas sports is far less pervasive than it is in American sport. It obviously exists but it's far more conservative than in America where the hype goes up to eleven.

[jdw]

So jdw's a fan of ManU, Duke, and the Lakers? Dude...

And the USC Trojans football team. Growing up in Los Angeles, add in the Dodgers and UCLA basketball in my youth.

 

I have a low tolerance for shitty run organizations / teams / program because I grew up watching good ones. When looking for teams, I tend to look for one that's run like the Dodgers of the 70s or Bruins of the later Wooden era of my youth, or the Lakers of the 80s.

 

Actually got in on the front end of Coach K's run with Duke with the 1985/86 team, and the front end of SAF's run with ManU with the 1992/93 team which is when I got back into futbol after bailing with Heysel.

 

John

[Johnny Sorrow]

Actually got in on the front end of Coach K's run with Duke with the 1985/86 team,

 

John

Ah yes. I still remember with great glee the sight of Pervis Ellison, Milt "The Stilt" Wagner, Herbert Crook, Billy Thompson, and Jeff Hall celebrating after beating Duke for the Championship.

 

[jdw]

In fairness to Jerry, narrative in overseas sports is far less pervasive than it is in American sport. It obviously exists but it's far more conservative than in America where the hype goes up to eleven.

Narrative is even more over the top in England than it is in the US.

 

Rooney's issues with ManU in the 2010/2011 season were hyped well beyond their equiv in the US (Melo wanting out of Denver). Add in his injury issues the year before, his performance at the World Cup, his horrid start to the season... It was huge.

 

My thought would be for folks to watch Sky Sports News, which is even more sensationalistic than a norm SportsCenter over here... and we're not even seeing the half of it since we're only seeing Sky's "news" program, not their shows wrapping around the soccer games which are extremely critical in terms of narrative and storyline.

 

That's not even touching on the level of storyline around even the most mediocre of teams:

 

Blackburn fans to step up Kean protests

 

 

 

That's an ESPN site, so it really doesn't get across strongly enough how massive the storyline of "Kean Sucks And Has To Go!!!!" has been all season for Blackburn Fans.

 

And I'm not even going to get into the goofy owners of Blackburn.

 

John

[jdw]

Actually got in on the front end of Coach K's run with Duke with the 1985/86 team,

 

John

Ah yes. I still remember with great glee the sight of Pervis Ellison, Milt "The Stilt" Wagner, Herbert Crook, Billy Thompson, and Jeff Hall celebrating after beating Duke for the Championship.

Great game.

 

Having been a Dodgers Fan and as a kid watching them lose in the WS in 1974, 1977 & 1978, then lose in the 163rd game of the 1980 season, it made the 1981 WS richer. I liked that with Duke: all those Final Four loses, climaxing with the 1990 ass kicking at the hands of UNLV, made 1991 much more awesome, then in 1992 being the first since 1973 to back-to-back... especially over UK and those Fab Five assholes, all that much greater.

 

Having a great / good / productive season while not winning the ultimate prize doesn't piss me off. I kind of was okay with the 2009/2010 ManU team even though the Blues won the EPL: I had expected the loss of Ronaldo and Tevez to sink us to the point that getting into the CL would be at risk. Instead, there were a lot of positives about the season.

 

It's stuff like the 1999 loss to UConn and 1998 loss to UK that piss me off since Duke should have won both games.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Before replying in full tomorrow, I feel my argument has been -- whether deliberately or not -- misconstrued here. I've already said that the narrative is spun by the media in real sports.

 

My point was never that narrative is not part of the way sports are sold, it was that 1) they are generated in a completely different way and outside of the game by media to sell ... media and 2) the sorts of stories aren't comparible to the stories you get in wrestling. They just aren't. They are much closer to the sorts of stories you get in movies.

 

Here is a picture of Repo Man.

 

 

Are you telling me that guy and everything he did are closer to sports than TV or film? Really?

[ohtani's jacket]

In fairness to Jerry, narrative in overseas sports is far less pervasive than it is in American sport. It obviously exists but it's far more conservative than in America where the hype goes up to eleven.

Narrative is even more over the top in England than it is in the US.

 

Rooney's issues with ManU in the 2010/2011 season were hyped well beyond their equiv in the US (Melo wanting out of Denver). Add in his injury issues the year before, his performance at the World Cup, his horrid start to the season... It was huge.

 

My thought would be for folks to watch Sky Sports News, which is even more sensationalistic than a norm SportsCenter over here... and we're not even seeing the half of it since we're only seeing Sky's "news" program, not their shows wrapping around the soccer games which are extremely critical in terms of narrative and storyline.

Wayne Rooney's issues with United weren't the equivalent of Carmelo Anthony wanting out of Denver. Carmelo wanting out of Denver wasn't a pimple on the ass of Wayne Rooney's issues with United. Rooney, if he'd stuck to his guns and not signed a five year deal two days after signalling his intent to leave, would've been as big a story as Lebron James; it wasn't. There's no way that Sky Sports News is more sensationalistic than SportsCenter. The tabloid press generate plenty of scandal and controversy in the UK but it's chicken feed compared to US stories. Was there a story in British sport last year as big as the Miami and Penn State? Is there anything in the UK that's hyped to the extent that the Super Bowl or the World Series are? The UK struggles to generate the amount of stories that the US produces on a daily basis.

[Log]

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?

I can't speak to soccer (yeah, I called it soccer!), but this happens quite often in American football. Some teams take on the characteristics of their city and stay that way. No matter who the players or the coaching staff for the Pittsburgh Steelers, they're always a working-class, hard-nosed team. Philly's sort of the same way. Chicago, too.

[Childs]

Sure, wrestling is generally goofier and more heightened than sport, but I don't think the narratives are as different as you're suggesting. Humble guy shuts up cocky, loquacious guy. Little guy tries to topple big guy. Poorly funded upstart takes on rich, established power. Team fights to get over the hump against a longtime rival. Games undermined by questionable officiating. These are all simple storylines that crop up repeatedly in sport and also lie at the heart of countless memorable wrestling matches and angles. Is wrestling the same as sport? No. As OJ said, it's not precisely like any other entertainment medium. But it certainly borrows durable narratives from sport.

[jdw]

In fairness to Jerry, narrative in overseas sports is far less pervasive than it is in American sport. It obviously exists but it's far more conservative than in America where the hype goes up to eleven.

Narrative is even more over the top in England than it is in the US.

 

Rooney's issues with ManU in the 2010/2011 season were hyped well beyond their equiv in the US (Melo wanting out of Denver). Add in his injury issues the year before, his performance at the World Cup, his horrid start to the season... It was huge.

 

My thought would be for folks to watch Sky Sports News, which is even more sensationalistic than a norm SportsCenter over here... and we're not even seeing the half of it since we're only seeing Sky's "news" program, not their shows wrapping around the soccer games which are extremely critical in terms of narrative and storyline.

Wayne Rooney's issues with United weren't the equivalent of Carmelo Anthony wanting out of Denver. Carmelo wanting out of Denver wasn't a pimple on the ass of Wayne Rooney's issues with United. Rooney, if he'd stuck to his guns and not signed a five year deal two days after signalling his intent to leave, would've been as big a story as Lebron James; it wasn't.

Rooney's story was the equiv of Melo: star demands to be shipped out of his team. They weren't the equiv of Lebron because Lebron never asked to leave, and strung Cleveland along until the very end that he might stay.

 

In terms of hype, I said quite clear that Rooney's issues with ManU in 2010/2011 were hyped well beyond Melo's. Which they were. Not even close, even with Melo's storyline involving New York.

 

 

There's no way that Sky Sports News is more sensationalistic than SportsCenter. The tabloid press generate plenty of scandal and controversy in the UK but it's chicken feed compared to US stories. Was there a story in British sport last year as big as the Miami and Penn State?

Sure. The World Cup bids. Years in the making, and will linger all the way through the games.

 

A typical Sky Sports News is more sensational than the typical Sports Center. Christ, they have a regular segment looking at the Tabloids.

 

 

Is there anything in the UK that's hyped to the extent that the Super Bowl or the World Series are? The UK struggles to generate the amount of stories that the US produces on a daily basis.

The US is a larger country with more "major" sports to cover. It beats the shit out of me why we need a dick swinging game on whether the US or UK have more sports coverage. My point was that Jerry was either oblivious to or in denial about the fact that sports even in his country have regular, continuing and massive storylines in his sports.

 

But by all means if you want to defend Jerry's contention that there aren't sports storylines in the UK, I'd invite you to go up to my point about ManU's storyline of the 19th Title, Jerry's claim that it was just a media storyline that the players and fans didn't really give a shit about, and the evidence that he was either oblivious to or in denial about it.

 

The Lakers played the Blazer tonight. I listened to storyline about it this morning when driving to work. Heard storyline about it on the radio while driving at lunch (i) to pick up a card for a friend whose father died, (ii) from that Hallmark to Togos to get a sandwich, after eating it (iii) from Togos back to work. Read a few blogs and posts today on storyline about it. Listened to the game on the way home, where there was a crapload of storyline talked about during halftime. When I got home, I listened to local storyline on KCLA... and flipped over to get national storyline on TNT's coverage of the game. More on the post game show on TNT. Was flipping the dial around 10:45 and passed KCAL where they were getting a live post game report from Portland by their reporter (who doubles as the Lakers radio pbp man)... storyline. If I wasn't kinda enjoying The Song Remains The Same on Palladia right now, I probably could flip over to SportsCenter and get me some there as well... or ESPN News.

 

That's one rather minor game in a season of 66 games for each team... not counting the post season. That's not even couting the articles I read today about the Howard deal being speculated about.

 

The notion that storyline is a Media creation to sell the Media is obtuse. Anyone who participates on a Sports Board knows that fans talk about storyline all on their own. Or anyone who simply talks sports with their friends.

 

John

[jdw]

Before replying in full tomorrow, I feel my argument has been -- whether deliberately or not -- misconstrued here. I've already said that the narrative is spun by the media in real sports.

 

My point was never that narrative is not part of the way sports are sold, it was that 1) they are generated in a completely different way and outside of the game by media to sell ... media

They're not created by the media. Kobe's bad wrist, poor shooting and ballhogging aren't media inventions. They're real facts that Lakers Fans talk about simply by watching the team play.

 

The media didn't create ManU's losses to a pair of teams that on paper they were expected to beat, nor their horrible defense and creative issues. It's things that happened in games, and that fans talked about. Christ... my dad called me on the phone at work after the game yesterday, before Sky Sports aried, and he's not one who reads the British tabloids online. He was just pissed off by the performance of the team, and had his own storylines he took out of the game (and recent games) that was annoying the shit out if him.

 

He's just a fan. Not even a nutty hardcore fan like me.

 

 

and 2) the sorts of stories aren't comparible to the stories you get in wrestling. They just aren't. They are much closer to the sorts of stories you get in movies.

Some storylines are closer to sports, while some are closer to entertainment. No one is denying that... except for the person who is claiming there are no storylines in sports, and those that are in sports are faux storylines created by the media.

 

John

[JerryvonKramer]

Right, let's do this:

 

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.

No it's not the same thing.

 

Spurs and Arsenal are morally neutral entities. Establishments connected to particular localities and communites which pre-date anyone alive today. You can support one or the other.

 

A neutral third-party doesn't think of a Spurs fan or as Aresenal fan as good or evil. It's just someone about a person. You can tease them if their team loses, or even analyse the match with them to talk about what went wrong. Likewise if they won.

 

Spurs and Arsenal represent ... only themselves. Two football teams with their own histories and traditions. You, the fan -- or more cyncically, the consumer -- can buy into either of those or not.

 

Let's pretend for a second you are a spurs fan, and let's pretend for a second that Harry Redknapp is found guilty in that upcoming trail. AS A SPURS FAN, it would be perfectly permissable to condemn Harry Redknappy without compromising yourself as a spurs fan. Harry has done something morally wrong, so Harry -- just like anyone else in the world -- needs to accept his punishment.

 

The MORAL part of it does not come into the Spurs fan's thinking when his team are playing. Let's say Harry gets a massive fine and a 10-game touchline ban. The Spurs fan will still think Harry has done a great job, and if he comes back he'll still support Harry as manager.

 

Harry's part in SHADY DEALINGS, which would be tantamount to a heel turn in wrestling, doesn't matter at all to the Spurs fan's feelings about him as long as he's doing his job

 

The same is broadly true of Giggs with Man U fans after the details of his affair was made public. The same with John Terry and Chelsea fans no matter how many dickish and terrible things he does in real life.

 

In fact, the ONLY thing you can do to "turn heel" in football terms is to do what Sol Campbell did -- a direct transfer from Spurs to Arsenal.

 

That ensured he was booed at White Hart Lane for the rest of his career. The only crime you can really commit against the fans is disloyalty. You can see the same in Harry Redknapp's career when he went to Portsmouth after being the manager of sworn rivals Southhampton.

 

THE FANS will eat up all the gossip and transfer rumours and hype and so on that THE MEDIA feeds them, but when it comes down to it, the only time they'll waver in their support of their own players is in the advent of disloyalty.

 

The Manager is a slightly different scenario. Sometimes -- as with Steve Kean or Gary Megson at Bolton -- you get managers who the fans just HATE and want out. When that happens, the situation is very very difficult for the manager. It is almost unbelievable that Kean still has his job.

 

Again, there is no real MORAL element there, it's just a results thing, or in some cases a personality thing or a problem with the board. In Steve Kean's case, it's all three.

 

-------

 

Let's go back to wrestling now.

 

Hulk Hogan is good and the hero and someone you are MEANT to cheer for. The product is 100% designed for you to cheer Hogan. He stands for you. He represents your values. There is no real choice element here, he's YOUR guy and you CHEER FOR HIM.

 

Heenan, Andre and DiBiase are evil and you are MEANT to boo them. The product is 100% designed for you to boo them. They stand against you, they hate you, the peon at home. They represent everything you hate. Again, no real choice element, they HATE YOU and you HATE THEM AND WANT TO SEE THEM BEAT.

 

Spurs vs. Arsenal is a morally neutral grudge match informed by tradition, history and geography. Some fans will be fans because, as you said, their fathers or brothers were. Others will at some point CHOOSE who they support. Arsene Wenger does NOT hate Spurs, he doesn't really care about Spurs that much. Harry Redknapp does NOT hate Arsenal. And the players don't really hate the other club either (as shown by Sol Campbell and William Gallas, who didn't mind moving from one to the other). The only real people who care about the rivalry is the fans (and if I was being cheeky, just the Spurs fans) and the media who have an interest in SELLING stuff to said fans. There is no moral element.

 

Hogan vs. Heenan, Andre and DiBiase is a morally charged tale of one man fighting for his own pride and good old-fashioned American decency against a group of scheming villains who have tried to cheat him out his World title. The fans support Hogan unconditionally against these EVIL BASTARDS. There is no choice element, there is a strong moral element.

 

You can't compare Spurs vs. Arsenal and the fans of both clubs to Hogan vs. the Million $ Heel Team.

 

One is home vs. away, the other is good vs. evil.

 

You see the massive, massive, massive difference?

 

You see how the home vs. away narrative is designed to sell tickets to two pre-existing sets of fans?

 

And how the good vs. evil narrative is designed to sell tickets to one homogenous audience?

 

Do you see how Hogan vs. the heel is closer to Bruce Willis in Die Hard vs. Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber?

 

There is no relativism in wrestling morality. There's no "Oh but to a DiBiase fan, Hogan is the heel". Who would that be then? Jesse Ventura, me and that guy in row 15F?

 

In football there are Spurs fans, Arsenal fans, and neutrals. The media is necessarily neutral as well. You don't have that in American wrestling. You just don't. The dynamic is completely different.

 

And the SALES are coming from a different place.

 

Football sales:

 

I am a fan of Team X, I support them no matter what, I want to see them beat anyone they play, I'll buy a ticket no matter what, if they lose this week, they might win the next. But win or lose, thick or thin, I'm a TRUE FAN. I'll stick with them no matter what, they are part of my life.

 

Wrestling sales:

 

I want to see Hogan KICK THAT LOW DOWN SONNOVA BITCH'S ASS. Have my $20, I just want to see JUSTICE PREVAIL.

 

How are those two things comparible?

[JerryvonKramer]

The US is a larger country with more "major" sports to cover. It beats the shit out of me why we need a dick swinging game on whether the US or UK have more sports coverage. My point was that Jerry was either oblivious to or in denial about the fact that sports even in his country have regular, continuing and massive storylines in his sports.

 

But by all means if you want to defend Jerry's contention that there aren't sports storylines in the UK, I'd invite you to go up to my point about ManU's storyline of the 19th Title, Jerry's claim that it was just a media storyline that the players and fans didn't really give a shit about, and the evidence that he was either oblivious to or in denial about it.

A few things:

 

1. I never said there were no storylines in sports, I said the storylines are generated by the media and outside the game. They create hype around games to sell papers, to sell the games themselves and to ensure audience numbers. I said there was no MORAL ELEMENT to those narratives and that wrestling stories are closer to the movies.

 

2. The UK has the nastiest tabloid press in the world and in terms of crowds and money spent, the most committed fans (look at crowds for the Championship vs. Segunda Division or Serie B crowds). The country is also obsessed with seeing great people fall, seedy gossip and so on in a way that the US isn't always. It's always seemed to me that the US audience loves a SUCCESS story, whereas the UK audience loves a FAILURE or FALL FROM GRACE story. The country is also obsessed with football.

 

Accordingly, whenever anything happens in football, it's a massive deal. The back pages are filled with page after page of speculation about the tiniest thing.

 

A tiny utterance from a player or manager could be enough to make 2-3 articles. Usually the things that some player has said are pulled completely out of context for the purposes of sensationalism. For instance, if they asked Jose Mourinho if Villas-Boas was doing well and he said "he could be doing better", the headline would be warped into "MOURINHO SLAMS AVB FOR RUINING CHELSEA".

 

Incidentally, I only read The Guardian and zonalmarking these days. Not woth bothering with anything else to be honest.

 

3. Ok, ok, I was deliberately underplaying the importance of the 19th title, but the basic point remains the same: the players generally care far less about the narratives built up around the games than we are made to believe.

 

4. The ongoing narratives and big stories in football are NOTHING LIKE the ones in wrestling, for all the reasons I've been stressing.

[Childs]

Maybe this is simply a cultural difference, because you show zero grasp of the way sport is consumed and talked about in the U.S. The New York Yankees, for example, are clearly viewed by fans across the country as a kind of evil empire that tries to buy championships the way Dibiase tried to buy the WWF title without wrestling. Fans of smaller-market teams talk about it in moral terms all the time. Now, it's true that the Yankees probably don't act out of a desire to make opposing fans view them as evil. But the narrative really isn't all that different, and it isn't a media fabrication.

 

Besides, you're only looking at one aspect of wrestling storytelling. As stated before, there are many matches and angles that aren't based on over-the-top depictions of good and evil. There are underdog stories, stories of longtime rivalry, stories of overcoming injury, stories of matches tarnished by poor officiating -- in other words, stories that are quite common to competitive sport. If you refuse to recognize the overlap, you're just being obtuse. Wrestling borrows these storylines and heightens them because, hey, they work.

[jdw]

Right, let's do this:

 

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.

No it's not the same thing.

 

Spurs and Arsenal are morally neutral entities. Establishments connected to particular localities and communites which pre-date anyone alive today. You can support one or the other.

Except...

 

Spurs, Gunners, ManU, Barca, Real... these teams have fans around the WORLD. It's not just "localities and communites" of fandom.

 

I've got two friends here who are Wednesday Fans. You know... the team that is down in the 3rd level of English football. They both live in the US... always have. Just happened to become Wednesday fans back in the 90s.

 

Pogo Pete Stein is a ManCity Fan, which I seemed to be oblivious to. My friend Simon is a Blues fan... Hadi is a Spurs Fan... I'm a ManU fan. We kind of don't... you know... live in the "localities and communites" of the teams we follow.

 

I'm a Duke Fan. They're in North Carolina, while I'm in SoCal... and always have been. Once the Braves got my favorite pitcher (Greg Maddux) in 1993, I started enjoying them while my interest in the Dodgers ebbed and flowed. Braves are in Atlanta.

 

The "connection" is to the Team and the Players.

 

A neutral third-party doesn't think of a Spurs fan or as Aresenal fan as good or evil. It's just someone about a person. You can tease them if their team loses, or even analyse the match with them to talk about what went wrong. Likewise if they won.

This is meaningless. A neutral third party of a Hogan vs Andre match doesn't think that Andre Fans are good or evil.

 

On they other hand, while they might not be Hogan or Andre Fans because (let's say) they're a Savage Fan, because they're Savage Fans they might hate both Wrestlers.

 

In sporting terms:

 

I hate Chelsea. I don't generally hate their fans. In fact, I like Simon quite a bit going back for close to a decade. But generally... I want to see Chelsea do very, very, very badly because it's good for my team. I root against them.

 

I don't dislike the Gunners because I've liked the way they play football going back to the 90s. I root against them just enough for it to be good for ManU... but I don't root against them to the point that they're in the relegation struggle. I have no issues with their Fans because their Fans aren't competing with ManU: the *team* is.

 

On the other hand, I kind of strongly dislike Liverpool Fans. That "comeback when you win 18" was a douchebag comment. Then the glee they took in 2010 over their team jobbing/tanking to Chelsea on the final day of the season to keep ManU from getting to 19... that was jerkoff stuff. Then add in Heysel... yeah, Liverpool Fans can take a flying fuck.

 

 

Spurs and Arsenal represent ... only themselves. Two football teams with their own histories and traditions. You, the fan -- or more cyncically, the consumer -- can buy into either of those or not.

Listen to sports fans talk. They often talk in terms of "we", feeling a strong bond to the team that frankly goes far beyond the nutty fandom of pro wrestling. That's a bond that's so strong that they don't even think in terms of being a Consumer.

 

Which isn't too dissimilar from wrestling Wrestling Fans not seeing themselves as Consumers even when they're buying a Hulk Hogan Foam Finger.

 

 

 

Let's pretend for a second you are a spurs fan, and let's pretend for a second that Harry Redknapp is found guilty in that upcoming trail. AS A SPURS FAN, it would be perfectly permissable to condemn Harry Redknappy without compromising yourself as a spurs fan. Harry has done something morally wrong, so Harry -- just like anyone else in the world -- needs to accept his punishment.

What's nice about this example is that we have a current example: Luis Suarez. And we know what happened there: Liverpool Fans have circled the wagon around Luis, rightly or wrongly.

 

In contrast, I'm a rather large fan of Good Luis on the pitch (the extremely high quality of his play) while being moderately annoyed by Bad Luis on the pitch (he's quite a diving simulating twat). I've been a fan back to his Ajax days, and also love watching him play for Uruguay teaming with Diego Forlan. Some amazing stuff to watch.

 

*I* couldn't defend him when he went Mike Tyson on an opponent's ear couple of years ago. *I* was troubled by the charges against him in the current episode, and not just because of player/team that made the complaint. What Luis was charged for, and found guilty of, is high on the list of the most morally objectionable things you can do on the futbol pitch and needs to be completely and forever gotten out of the game.

 

Liverpool Fan = Circle the Wagons around Luis

Other Fans = either Anti-Luis about the incident or troubled by it

 

Fans are often blindly loyal to their teams or players... or willing to cut them a lot more slack than non-fans of the team/player.

 

 

The MORAL part of it does not come into the Spurs fan's thinking when his team are playing. Let's say Harry gets a massive fine and a 10-game touchline ban. The Spurs fan will still think Harry has done a great job, and if he comes back he'll still support Harry as manager.

 

Harry's part in SHADY DEALINGS, which would be tantamount to a heel turn in wrestling, doesn't matter at all to the Spurs fan's feelings about him as long as he's doing his job

They don't to *Spurs* Fans.

 

They do to other fans.

 

The same is broadly true of Giggs with Man U fans after the details of his affair was made public. The same with John Terry and Chelsea fans no matter how many dickish and terrible things he does in real life.

ManU Fans were supportive of Giggs.

 

Fans of *other* teams roasted his balls. Some with Roon when he was caught banging hookers. Same with Robbie Fowler over the coke rumors, to which he had an interesting comeback.

 

Speaking of Fowler, there was also the Graeme Le Saux thing where not only the fans but Fowler brought Le Saux alleged personal life into the mix.

 

 

In fact, the ONLY thing you can do to "turn heel" in football terms is to do what Sol Campbell did -- a direct transfer from Spurs to Arsenal.

You're nuts. Rooney is a heel to much of English Fans... except when he's suited up for England.

 

Roy Keane anyone? It wasn't the transfer that made him a heel... it was because he was a fucking nutter on the pitch always too ready to be the enforcer.

 

What about all the players who English fans love to go on and on and on about being diving twats compared to Good Manly English players?

 

THE FANS will eat up all the gossip and transfer rumours and hype and so on that THE MEDIA feeds them, but when it comes down to it, the only time they'll waver in their support of their own players is in the advent of disloyalty.

Again, you're thinking far too narrow. There are rumors and gossip, but a lot of it is also storylines On The Pitch.

 

People fucking HATE HATE HATE ManU because we were Too Fucking Good. 26 trophies of note (excluding Charity Shields and Super Cups) in 22 seasons... that's Too Fucking Good and makes fans of other teams pissed / jealous / whinny bastards.

 

That's fans of other teams eating up the Performance of ManU into their own bitter, hateful fashion due to what ManU did on the Pitch.

 

 

The Manager is a slightly different scenario. Sometimes -- as with Steve Kean or Gary Megson at Bolton -- you get managers who the fans just HATE and want out. When that happens, the situation is very very difficult for the manager. It is almost unbelievable that Kean still has his job.

 

It's not Sometimes. It happens every year. There were Arsenal Fans calling for Wenger's head on pike earlier this year... and last year... and for several seasons.

 

There are very few teams where a manager is as universally beloved as Sir Alex.

 

Again, there is no real MORAL element there, it's just a results thing, or in some cases a personality thing or a problem with the board. In Steve Kean's case, it's all three.

Again... the notion that Storylines must be MORAL is... well... nonsensical.

 

I'll watch an episode or Cheers or Seinfeld tonight. What are the odds that the storyline of the episode has a truly Moral point... or is just trying to entertain fans and make them laugh for 30 minutes?

 

I'm sure that the movie Tintin has some deep moral hooks. But really... it was just a fun movie. Revenge as a Moral storyline element? Redemption as a Moral storylines element? If you believe those are Moral storylines, then futbol and all other sports have them in spades. ManU has a game this weekend that's has, for ManU Fans, a storyline of Revenge.

 

-------

 

Let's go back to wrestling now.

 

Hulk Hogan is good and the hero and someone you are MEANT to cheer for. The product is 100% designed for you to cheer Hogan. He stands for you. He represents your values. There is no real choice element here, he's YOUR guy and you CHEER FOR HIM.

Or... you just like the fact that he kicks the ass of his opponents. You like to root for the big guy who wins. Which is Hulk.

 

On the other hand, I and a lot of other people HATED THE LIVING SHIT out of Hogan in the 80s. He was everything we hated about pro wrestling. So we had a choice: hate the fuck out of him.

 

Did Hogan really stand for "me"? Not at all... not in any way. So it was easy to hate him.

 

Heenan, Andre and DiBiase are evil and you are MEANT to boo them. The product is 100% designed for you to boo them. They stand against you, they hate you, the peon at home. They represent everything you hate. Again, no real choice element, they HATE YOU and you HATE THEM AND WANT TO SEE THEM BEAT.

Except... Heenan was always telling the truth about Hogan. Hogan being an asshole forced Andre to ask for a match. And Ted wasn't really evil, but just a rich man willing to share his money if people just gave him what he wanted.

 

Spurs vs. Arsenal is a morally neutral grudge match informed by tradition, history and geography. Some fans will be fans because, as you said, their fathers or brothers were. Others will at some point CHOOSE who they support. Arsene Wenger does NOT hate Spurs, he doesn't really care about Spurs that much. Harry Redknapp does NOT hate Arsenal. And the players don't really hate the other club either (as shown by Sol Campbell and William Gallas, who didn't mind moving from one to the other). The only real people who care about the rivalry is the fans (and if I was being cheeky, just the Spurs fans) and the media who have an interest in SELLING stuff to said fans. There is no moral element.

I hate to break you illusion, but some players and coaches really do dislike other teams and players. They also want to beat them. I gave you examples of Rooney and other ManU players expressing their joy of getting #19 and being able to tell the scousers to piss off.

 

Andre didn't hate Hogan. He just wanted a title shot from his friend, and his friend said "no". So Andre forced the issue.

 

Hogan vs. Heenan, Andre and DiBiase is a morally charged tale of one man fighting for his own pride and good old-fashioned American decency against a group of scheming villains who have tried to cheat him out his World title. The fans support Hogan unconditionally against these EVIL BASTARDS. There is no choice element, there is a strong moral element.

No. It was story of a selfish fuck not willing to give his best friend and mentor a title shot. I chose to root for Andre.

 

You can't compare Spurs vs. Arsenal and the fans of both clubs to Hogan vs. the Million $ Heel Team.

 

One is home vs. away, the other is good vs. evil.

Lots of fans viewed Their Team vs ManU as Good vs Evil. ManU fans now view ManU vs City as Good vs Evil now that the foot is on the other shoe.

 

 

You see the massive, massive, massive difference?

 

You see how the home vs. away narrative is designed to sell tickets to two pre-existing sets of fans?

Except that I'm not buying a ticket for the FA Cup game this weekend. I'm just watching it. And it's not really Home vs Away, because we could be away.

 

And how the good vs. evil narrative is designed to sell tickets to one homogenous audience?

Except that wrestling fans aren't one homogenous audience. You have noticed how fans react to John Cena. In turn, Riki Choshu had his own fans when fighting Fujinami and Inoki, and then Jumbo and Tenryu.

 

Don't pigeonhole either sports fans or wrestling fans. They have the ability to think for themselves. I was at one of the first Hogan vs Flair matches, and there were a good number of fans in the building who rooted for Flair... and his "winning" the title got a much bigger pop than you would think infront of a WWF crowd.

 

 

Do you see how Hogan vs. the heel is closer to Bruce Willis in Die Hard vs. Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber?

The problem here isn't whether it's closer to one or the other. It's your denial that it bears any resemblance to sports, or that sports have narratives.

 

Jumbo vs Tenryu was a lot closer to Yankees (Jumbo) vs Red Sox (Tenryu) than Die Hard.

 

Ric Flair vs Rick Steamboat in 1989 was much closer to Sports than Die Hard, despite the Clash incident where Flair got stripped down to his undies. The majority of the series was pushed in a sporting fashion.

 

You're trying to come up with one of your One True Rules Of Pro Wrestling when the simple fact is that there isn't one here.

 

 

There is no relativism in wrestling morality. There's no "Oh but to a DiBiase fan, Hogan is the heel". Who would that be then? Jesse Ventura, me and that guy in row 15F?

Flair had plenty of fans in JCP even while being a heel.

 

Razor had fans while a heel... to the point that the WWF turned him face.

 

Then there are guys like Skinner that no one gave a fuck about whether he was a heel or a face. Or guys that the company pushes as a face that only 10% of the fans give a shit about, while no one else does.

 

 

In football there are Spurs fans, Arsenal fans, and neutrals. The media is necessarily neutral as well. You don't have that in American wrestling. You just don't. The dynamic is completely different.

I'm not a "neutral" when Spurs and Gunners play. I'm looking at the table, figuring out what result benefits ManU the most, and also which of the two teams I enjoy more this year. Perhaps a Wigan Fan who doesn't care about either of those teams is neutral, but a Rival Fan *cares*.

 

I'm not a Heat Fan in the NBA. On the other hand... I enjoy them losing, and if I'm watching a game of theirs, I'm pulling for the other team. If I'm watching a ManCity or Real Madrid game, I sure as hell are not neutral. I'm pulling for them to lose.

 

 

And the SALES are coming from a different place.

 

Football sales:

 

I am a fan of Team X, I support them no matter what, I want to see them beat anyone they play, I'll buy a ticket no matter what, if they lose this week, they might win the next. But win or lose, thick or thin, I'm a TRUE FAN. I'll stick with them no matter what, they are part of my life.

I've bailed out on a number of teams that piss me off. I gave you an example, which you chose to ignore, of fans leaving teams by the tens of thousands. We also all know of ratings, even local ratings, going down "in thin" when the team is losing or the ownership has pissed them off.

 

I keep going back to this, but I think you truly do not have a good understanding of Sports Fandom and Sports in general.

 

Wrestling sales:

 

I want to see Hogan KICK THAT LOW DOWN SONNOVA BITCH'S ASS. Have my $20, I just want to see JUSTICE PREVAIL.

 

How are those two things comparible?

I want ManU to kick the living shit out of ManCity this weakend as revenge for that 6-1 ass kicking they gave us earlier this year. I want to see ManU re-establish themselves as The Man of the EPL, with a win launching them on a glorious run to a 20th league title and another FA Cup. I want to see ManCity reduced to controversy and internal strife that pulls down all that Mancini is trying to build with the Sheik's money. Fuck those City cocksuckers!

 

How's that?

 

I suspect that a few million ManU fans around the world are thinking that... most likely more than gave a shit about the Hulkster beating some lowe down SOB.

 

John

[jdw]

A few things:

 

1. I never said there were no storylines in sports, I said the storylines are generated by the media and outside the game. They create hype around games to sell papers, to sell the games themselves and to ensure audience numbers. I said there was no MORAL ELEMENT to those narratives and that wrestling stories are closer to the movies.

You talked about Moral elements, and also *narrative* elements.

 

"There is no narrative element in real sports."

 

"The narrative arcs are from tv and film."

 

"Titles are won and lost on the pitch, yes, but scores are no settled."

 

When people beat you up on the narrative element, you shifted slighty:

 

"There ARE narratives there, but they are created by the media to CREATE INTEREST in what's going on."

 

Then went crackers:

 

"The stories don't matter."

 

And seem oblivious that sports fans give up on teams all the time:

 

"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."

 

 

2. The UK has the nastiest tabloid press in the world and in terms of crowds and money spent, the most committed fans (look at crowds for the Championship vs. Segunda Division or Serie B crowds). The country is also obsessed with seeing great people fall, seedy gossip and so on in a way that the US isn't always. It's always seemed to me that the US audience loves a SUCCESS story, whereas the UK audience loves a FAILURE or FALL FROM GRACE story. The country is also obsessed with football.

In terms of committed fans, you're more likely to find a highler level of committement and fandom in major college (american) football in the US. All the same seedy shit as well.

 

Accordingly, whenever anything happens in football, it's a massive deal. The back pages are filled with page after page of speculation about the tiniest thing.

Well... I tried to make that point earlier.

 

 

3. Ok, ok, I was deliberately underplaying the importance of the 19th title, but the basic point remains the same: the players generally care far less about the narratives built up around the games than we are made to believe.

This is so wrong that I don't know where to start. It's just completely way off base.

 

4. The ongoing narratives and big stories in football are NOTHING LIKE the ones in wrestling, for all the reasons I've been stressing.

I think what some of us are trying to get across is the ones in sports are...

 

BETTER

 

The best angle storyline in wrestling last year (say Punk's) wasn't as good at the 20 best sports storylines around the world last year. Hell... I suspect that *we* collectively on this board don't even know the 20 best sports storylines in the world because the best ones are happening in some small town or country that we know dick about.

 

I'll just randomly toss one out:

 

If you were a hardcore College Hoops Fan, and didn't hate UConn hoops (which sadly I happen to hate), the Huskies storyline from Jan 29 through Apr 4 was something epic and compelling and mindboggling. If you were a Husky Hardcore and a Punk Hardcore, I suspect that you'd rank that Husky run of falling off the cliff then doing the nearly impossible as one of the greatest storylines you'd ever seen in sports.

 

And that wasn't even an epic story for an emotional standpoint. Just a hell of a narrative that developed.

 

Packers run to the Super Bowl last year?

 

Looking at 2010, did pro wrestling have any narrative akin to Kelly Kulick's run at the PBA Tournament of Champions which was just nutty great both on an emotional level and on a historic level for the sport?

 

Sports have narratives. Great ones. Of the charts ones. They've moved some of us far beyond anything in pro wrestling has moved us.

 

Which was the point some of us made:

 

Wrestling does a worse job with Storyline and Narrative than Sports... and it has no excuse for doing worse because pro wrestling has Control over Storyline and Narrative while Sports develop from play.

 

John

[NintendoLogic]

Spurs and Arsenal are morally neutral entities.

So are Misawa and Kawada.

 

See, that's the problem. US-style rasslin'/sports entertainment is your only frame of reference, and you're acting like anything outside of that doesn't exist. It's kind of like saying that film is inherently limited as an art form and only talking about Hollywood blockbusters.

[jdw]

It's perhaps more limited than that:

 

Rock 'n' Wrestling WWF is the frame of reference

 

That's not to say that JCP, Memphis and loads of other promotions / territores didn't have over the top angles and gimmicks and what not.

 

But Bob Backlund vs Ken Patera isn't exactly the same as Hogan vs Kamala. Different level of heels, one is closer to the movies, the other is trying a bit more to be "sporting" even if it's theatrical.

 

John

[jdw]

Police probe Adeyemi incident

 

I'm guessing that Pool Fan doesn't really HATE Tom Adeyemi, but instead is just choosing to be racist.

 

Or perhaps it's time to revisit the notion that there are no moral narratives in sports.

 

John

[Matt D]

You guys have gone far and wide with this.

 

It's TERRIBLY frustrating that while wrestling SHOULD be better than reality, it's not.

[MJH]

To throw my oar into JVK/JDW's debate:

 

Firstly, newspapers are garbage here. Sure, the tabloids focus more on celebrity bullshit, but every newspaper is laden with its own propaganda and prejudices. People deride the Mail - deservedly so - but every paper, including the Telegraph, the Times, the supposedly-'objective' Independent, and the Guardian, they all have their stances which they stick to rigidly; your tolerance of it is depended by where your own opinions fall, and even though I might agree more with certain aspects of the Guardian/Independent (being generally 'of the left'), this kind of shit shows their cards a little too well. Papers would generally be well-served to do away with their op-eds and prohibit the use of adjectives/adverbs in their columns.

 

Even the local press. I can't speak for the rest of the country, but in Liverpool, the Echo preaches the fuck out of that retarded 'us vs. them' mentality. And, unfortunately, as with the readers of the national papers, most people slurp that cool aid up.

 

And the idea that this is absent from the sportspages is wrong. Take the Suarez story. They bashed Liverpool's players for wearing his shirt warming up. But to make that argument, they played it as Liverpool players, if not supporting racism, then as not supporting the 'kick it out' campaign. Whereas, in reality, they were supporting Suarez. As in, what they were actually saying was 'we know this guy personally and we don't think he's a racist'. That's a small but crucial difference that the press were happy to forego in order to proudly show their support for getting racism out of football, which is a stance that shouldn't need such twisting into and is cheapened by doing so.

 

*

 

As far as SkySportsNews vs. Sportscenter goes, I can't say definitively that Sky are more sensationalist (we only get a truncated, I presume 'international', version of SportsCenter, as well as PTI, Around The Horn, Jim Rome... and the pre-game/half-time coverage on NHL, MLB, NBA and college football/basketball broadcast on ESPN. Sky Sports and Channel 4 have the NFL and do their own) but like all Sky News they're closer to their American counterparts in how they handle the news as opposed to the BBC. They don't 'pick sides' as it were, but they juice things up.

 

And when they can pick sides (ie; international sports - which I'd be more than happy to have done away with altogether, or at least have England removed from) it's unbearable.

 

*

 

But as far as the fans go in relation to wrestling...

 

There is a great deal of the 'pantomime' that you get in wrestling. Whilst as a Liverpool fan (sorry John), I have no problem with an 8-game ban for Suarez for racism (though I haven't read the full report and the only video footage is of him pinching Evra's arm), of course provided Terry gets the same punishment (there's video footage in that case). However, him getting an additional ban for sticking a finger up to the crowd? That's bullshit. Adebayor getting all kinds of shit for racing down to the Arsenal supporters who'd spent the entire match shouting abuse at him after scoring against them? Bullshit. Even whatever happened in result of Gary Neville kissing the United badge in front of the Liverpool fans? Bullshit. Fuck the FA/press when it comes to that: you can't not have the players react, and the games all the better for it. Sure Cantona had to get punished, but even then, even Robbie Fowler put in his book that just about any footballer was thinking 'good on him' for doing it.

 

But an important aspect of the fans that you're missing, though John briefly touched on it, is that, away from the game, and even during it, the fans don't hate each other. I've got lots of friends in Manchester. Sure, there's the obvious banter that goes on, but we'll give credit where it's due and talk well of both sides. What makes the Liverpool/United feud so good is that the fans respect the worth of both clubs: they're the two most successful teams in English football and have been 'big clubs' for years and years. They didn't 'buy their way' to the top as Chelsea and City have. As much money was United spent/invested in the '90s, it was their home grown class of Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Neville, etc... every Man United fan I know has said various forms of 'City need 10-15 years at the top before the derby's as big as Liverpool-United'.

 

Everyone I know give Ferguson his due. They'll debate his status as 'GOAT' on the grounds that had a singular man had the manager's seat for Liverpool's dominance (it was all one system/regime) he'd have just as much, and that Paisley's 9 years were more successful than any period of Ferguson's. Not to mention he won three European Cups - no worry about Fergie losing his motivation. But they speak respectfully of him as a manager. The criticism is that he's a douche and/or cocky. But they always give him his fair and deserved due as a manager. Any knighthood for football in bullshit, though, and I soon as I point out, with regards to not giving Paisley one as they're not done posthumously, that even Shakespeare hasn't been given one, that point dies.

 

I've never heard a bad word said about Scholes. Ever. Or Giggs. Even when the affair stories broke, the only stuff I heard was that they wished he'd've had classier taste in women. And as much as they might take the piss out of Rooney, there's always a compliment to his actual playing ability suffused in there because they like their football and he's a fucking great player. And there's still a fair degree of 'local pride' (even if personally I couldn't give a shit) that probably the two best English players of the past 6/7 years have been Liverpool-born.

 

Etc...

 

Wrestling doesn't have what I guess you'd call the kayfabed version of this board kind of discussions. Maybe, in the past, they might have had them in Japan, I don't know, maybe Dan could help out there, but you can't take that 'objective' ( ? ) aspect from sports discussion.

[Matt D]

Also, I hate saying it, I really do, but I feel like at this point, with all the discussion about ownership of teams and salaries and evil empires and what not, we have to talk about the comparison to the BEHIND THE SCENES elements of wrestling, which is, honestly, more than half of what we talk about and follow.

[JerryvonKramer]

Ok jdw, I'm tapping out on this.

 

We're never going to agree on this.

 

My view is that wrestling -- from puro to the cheesiest of cheesy 80s WWF -- is a comic-book world populated with heroes and villains. I think it is very difficult to take the moral element out of things.

 

You can be deliberately contrarian and talk about hating Hogan in the 80s, but that's just the booking failing on you. You were meant to like Hogan but you didn't. You weren't meant to agree with Heenan. Funny enough, I was a heel fan as a kid -- Heenan, DiBiase, Ventura, Flair, Anderson, Rude, they were all my favourites. I supported heels. I was a mark heel fan. Hell, I even liked Mr. Fuji and Slick. I rooted for Brother Love over Piper at Wrestlemania 5.

 

But that's not the way it was ever meant to be. The whole product is not designed for you to choose who to support. It's designed for you to root for the face and boo the heel. Are you denying this basic facet of wrestling booking?

 

This one thing, for me, means that wrestling can never ever ever be like real sports where you have fans of teams and individuals.

 

Ok, you've made a good case for how wrestling has tried to ape real sports and for how -- for fans, for the media and even for some players -- there is more to real sports than just winning and losing (i.e. the narratives around games). But I'm not convinced you've demonstrated how wrestling fans and sports fans are the same, or how the relationship to the product is the same.

 

And in a sense, I don't understand why you'd want to show that either, when -- as plenty of folk have said -- wrestling is wrestling (i.e. not really like sports or like movies, although it takes elements of both).

 

Just some final thoughts:

 

When I said that players can't turn heel other than by being disloyal and you countered with "TO THEIR OWN FANS, they'd be heels to fans of all the other teams" -- don't you see how that's completley disanalogous with wrestling where you have absolute faces and heels?

 

Being a face in wrestling is absolute -- forget your tweeners for a second -- your Tito Santana is a goody two-shoes, all his friends are good guys, he does good deeds, he shakes hands with the fans etc. You've been watching wrestling for over 25 years, I don't need to explain this to you.

 

He's a face not only to Tito Santana fans, but also to ALL wrestling fans. Even little 7-year old Jerryvonkramer sitting at home with his love of all the bad guys can see that he's meant to like Tito, but being contrarian and a lover of villainy he chooses to prefer Ric Martel instead. Little Jerryvonkramer can see that he's in the vast vast minority there and that he is cheering for the bad guy. Let's say you'll always get the 5% of have to be different, maybe 10% in Philly.

 

If Tito Santana turns, the so-called "Tito fans" don't stay loyal to him, they'll boo him. All the fans will boo him. Except that 5%, 10% in Philly. Suddenly Little heel mark Jerryvonkramer likes Tito Santana.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that in wrestling there are ONLY two teams: heel and face. And you're meant to be a (mark) face fan. And the vast majority of fans were mark face fans.All my friends loved Bret and Warrior and Legion of Doom and Demolition before them and all the rest of that shit. They all happened to be faces.

 

Being a sports fan just isn't like that. It doesn't matter if Man City are heels TO YOU, in the abstract, in the way they are presented on the news and so on, they are just a team who have received investment and who are doing well at the moment. They aren't absolute heels. There is no "heel side" of the English Premier League. There are no heel teams. Even Stoke aren't a heel team. There are no heels. Even Roy Keane wasn't a heel, even if he got booed in every stadium he played in.

 

Why? Because a heel is a construct, a fictional villain character played by a professional wrestler. Roy Keane was just a player who went in very hard when he was tackling. And he had a bad temper. But he wasn't a VILLAIN.

 

You've talked time and again now of fans deserting their teams: fairweather fans. Glory hunters some might say. Fine, but most folk would say they aren't true fans of their teams. Leeds still get big crowds. Nottingham Forrest get decent crowds. Newcastle got more than 30,000 every week when they went down. Like anything else you get your diehards and you get your here today, gone tomorrow fans.

 

But on the whole being a fan of a team is a lifelong thing, some might call it a burden, or a cross to bear, especially those of lower league sides. Say if Sir Alex leaves Man U and they slump to mid-table, are you suddenly going to stop being a United fan? (please don't say "yes")

 

Being a mark babyface fan is not the same thing at all. For a start, wrestlers' careers are relatively short. Secondly, they are prone to turn heel. Thirdly, your interest as a fan will wax and wane depending on the presentation of the product, the angles and storylines on offer, etc. Finally, you are rooting for him because he's fighting for a cause you believe in ("you" being the mark babyface fan, not the contrarian jdw in the 80s or Little Jerryvonkramer).

 

 

Ok, have to stop because we're going round in circles. I've actually discussed this with some IRL friends because it's been rumbling on for days now, and I do need to check that I'm not going mad as well. I'm having another set of friends round for dinner tomorrow and I'll bring this up with them too. All big sports fans -- none of them wrestling fans. I'll see if they agree with you or not. I'll even show them this thread.

 

 

===================

 

On the other point that people have mentioned a few times now:

 

That real sports have better and more compelling stories than wrestling. Well I'm not disagreeing with that.

 

But what medium has EVER been able to emulate sports? Films? Books? TV shows? They all fail really because you can't recreate that sort of drama, it's not possible. It's very context specific for a start.

 

For the sake of my sanity and everyone else's, I'm willing to accept that wrestling is EQUIDISTANT to sports and movies / comics / whatever. However, the stuff comparing wrestling fans to football fans is something I don't buy all. And I will never accept that real sports have faces and heels that are comparible to the faces and heels of wrestling.