Tropes in pro-wrestling that you loathe

[gordi]

I generally hate using irony as a weapon but I tend to make an exception on those rare occasions when someone tries to hit me with "You know it's all fake, right?"

 

I respond with a surprised "REALLY!?!?!" then a broad widening of the eyes and an exaggeratedly sad face, like I'm a naive four-year-old who has

just been told about Santa Claus

. Usually by that time the other person has caught on that it was a pretty stupid question to have asked.

 

On one particular occasion, the dude who asked the question was somehow unable to pick up on my obvious mockery and so I took it a step further, making bug puppy dog eyes and and an exaggeratedly quivering lower lip. At that point, a good female friend came over and asked me (In a totally mock-concerned, motherly voice) what was wrong.

 

"That man says that pro wrestling isn't real," I said quietly, and sadly.

 

"Oh no! It's real! It's real!" she replied, gently stroking my bald head while shooting 'that man' a reproving look.

 

He told us we were crazy and walked aggitatedly away, apparently still unaware that it hadn't really come as news to me.

[Jingus]

The only people who use the "you know it's fake, right?" line tend to be folks who've never watched it in their entire lives. (Which, truthfully, is the majority of people.) They simply don't know shit about it, and do indeed still blindly buy into the Received Wisdom that rassling still holds tight to kayfabe. It's basically the same as, oh, anyone who denigrates the entire population of France as being cowards who surrender at the drop of a hat, because it's just a snarky way to feel superior to a large number of people. Same thing with "lol, they like wrestling, they don't know it's fake!" towards fans.

 

A more irritating version is when you run into people who insist that wrestling is so fake that none of it could possibly hurt the performers or cause injury. And when you start telling them about all the guys who've been injured or crippled or killed in the ring, they'll start instantly spinning some kind of conspiracy theory about how all of that is faked, too.

[Strummer]

A more irritating version is when you run into people who insist that wrestling is so fake that none of it could possibly hurt the performers or cause injury. And when you start telling them about all the guys who've been injured or crippled or killed in the ring, they'll start instantly spinning some kind of conspiracy theory about how all of that is faked, too.

I had a very strange experience with this one. We were all gathered to watch a PPV in 1995 or so (I was around 16). In fact it may have been KOTR 95! Well one of my brother's friends, who was about 12 or 13 starts spouting how no one really gets hurt and they're just "playing around" I responded with a "well not really they can get hurt if they don't perform a move properly or land wrong..etc" Well the kid starts getting teary eyed and says "No, oh no they DON"T get hurt" He was seriously almost in tears and started shaking. Then one of the parents who was there said "stop, you're scaring him" or something of that nature. It was awkward to say the least. I have no idea why he got upset other than he was a very compassionate and empathetic kid

[Dylan Waco]

I can't count the number of people who have laughed at me when I told them the blood in wrestling was real. About two years back I was explaining the way blading worked to a room full of hipsters all of whom assumed I was just some dumbshit rube. Now I am a dumbshit rube, but I found this particularly annoying coming from the scum I was surrounded by so I did some google searching and provided enough evidence to prove them all wrong. The end result of this was a drunk guy slicing his head open with a peace of quartz from the driveway. Good times

[JerryvonKramer]

[Strummer]

yeah the blading thing can get real annoying. I've had several discussions with people who simply refuse to believe the blood is real. Back in 2000 I was working for a professor doing survey research at college and somehow wrestling came up with the whole group at the phone bank (I'm really dating myself here) I was the lone fan and blood came up and I mentioned blading and was quickly shot down. A couple of middle aged woman gave exasperated repsonses and looked at me as being macabre. Blading is usually something that sounds horrifying to non fans. So horrifying they just don't want to believe it.

[S.L.L.]

I think my favorite "don't you know it's fake?" moment was in high school. I was talking to this other kid - who, in fairness, was actually a pretty cool guy other than this - and the subject turned to wrestling. I forget who we were talking about, but he defended someone I didn't like because he was a good micworker. I countered that he was lousy in the ring, but he said he didn't care about the matches because it was all fake. I went with my usual counter at the time, asking him what his favorite movie was. He said The Fast and Furious, and I told him that that was fake, too. His response?

 

"No it's not! It's based on the real sport of underground street racing!"

 

The best part is that I still lost the argument, because I was so flabbergasted after hearing that that I couldn't form a decent rebuttal. He actually stupided his way to victory.

 

I can't count the number of people who have laughed at me when I told them the blood in wrestling was real. About two years back I was explaining the way blading worked to a room full of hipsters all of whom assumed I was just some dumbshit rube. Now I am a dumbshit rube, but I found this particularly annoying coming from the scum I was surrounded by so I did some google searching and provided enough evidence to prove them all wrong. The end result of this was a drunk guy slicing his head open with a peace of quartz from the driveway. Good times

My best friend believed wrestling was real until he was 12 specifically because of the blood. Because they did bleed on a fairly regular basis for something that was allegedly fake, and the blood looked very real, and it did appear to be coming from real wounds, and it's not like anyone would be crazy enough to intentionally slice themselves open like that for a fake sport. Right?

 

I also remember a conversation with my cousin when he stayed with me for the summer a few years back. He wasn't a fan, but was always very respectful of my fandom, and occasionally talked about it with me. Anyway, this was right around the time that MMA was starting to take off Stateside in a big way, and we were talking about the merits of MMA vs. wrestling.

 

Him: "UFC can get kinda bloody. I guess you can't really have that in wrestling because it's fake."

 

Me: "Oh no, there's plenty of blood in wrestling."

 

Him: "What, like fake blood?"

 

Me: "No, real blood."

 

Him: "You mean from accidents?"

 

Me: "Sometimes. But sometimes, if they want to have blood in a match, they'll do this thing called 'blading'. They hide a razor blade in their wrist tape or something, and when no one can see, they'll take it out and swipe it across their forehead."

 

Him: "Oh....that's horrible."

 

Me: "Yeah, it is."

 

I can't call it a trope I loathe considering what a vampire I am, but as I've written before, it does kinda bother me that in 2012, we still can't come up with a better way to show wrestlers bleeding than to actually have them cut themselves open. I know it's downright safe compared to a lot of stuff that happens in wrestling, and you'll never hear me complain about it in a serious, meaningful way like I do with a billion other things, but seriously, this is still the best method we've got?

[goc]

I can't call it a trope I loathe considering what a vampire I am, but as I've written before, it does kinda bother me that in 2012, we still can't come up with a better way to show wrestlers bleeding than to actually have them cut themselves open. I know it's downright safe compared to a lot of stuff that happens in wrestling, and you'll never hear me complain about it in a serious, meaningful way like I do with a billion other things, but seriously, this is still the best method we've got?

Well the old way was to punch a guy really hard in the eye brow and bust him open for real. So maybe that's the lesser of two evils but by how much?

[El-P]

but seriously, this is still the best method we've got?

You also got Lesnar's method, which was to elbow the guy in the head and make him bleed hardway. Pick you poison.

[Cox]

I don't know how my dad found out because he was never what you would call a serious wrestling fan, but he told me about blading from when I first started watching wrestling as a kid, so that's something I've known since I started watching. He used to tell me to look at wrestler's foreheads and how scarred up they were, and said that was from cutting themselves with a razorblade to draw blood, and then I saw a Dusty Rhodes promo in the WWF and that suddenly made a lot of sense.

[Ricky Jackson]

My dad's argument for wrestling being fake was "If they're really punching each other in the face, how come the wrestlers don't have black eyes or bruises?" By the time I was 12 or so, I couldn't really disagree with his reasoning.

[Chess Knight]

My uncle thought the Joey Mercury face-explosion was fake. He probably thought it was a planned thing to have his face like that, but I can't understand how he'd think Joey's face could get made-up like that within seconds of being hit with the ladder. Some people just will not believe that wrestlers go through a lot of psyhical pain and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I hate how they act as if they know about it, too, when they're totally ignorant to it. Like 'yeah but THA'S AL'FAKE Y'KNOW." It really sucks.

[Matt D]

Ok I hate WWE's tag team title booking over the last few years. Some one should get a count of how many times a team won a non title match to set up a title match at the PPV(especially one they lost). It's not a bad angle in and of itself, if it's done once every few years. But they were doing it almost every month for a while.

[cm funk]

RE: Guys getting "smartened up"

 

I've seen or heard that particular talking point from so many old-timers, guys who don't have a problem breaking kayfabe anymore, that I absolutely believe it's true. Wrestling in the 50's/60's/70's was so different from what it is now. So many guys talk about how hard it was to break into the business back then, even just in terms of being recruited and trusted to be let into the community, before guys were weeded out by the training method.

 

I don't remember who exactly, but one guy tells a story about being sent out with another trainee for their first match and they were literally beating the shit out of each other, because that's what their training had been like. After the match the promoter explained to them that, "we don't really beat each other up". Lots of guys understood that the outcomes were fixed and it was an exhibition before they really understood how to work.

 

Also, you had far less "hardcore wrestling fans" getting into the business back then. It was football players, amateur wrestlers, tough guys/bouncers, strongmen, eventually bodybuilders/gym rats.....so many guys from past eras speak of having watched wrestling on TV or gone to a couple shows as kids, but not really being fans when they entered the business. WWE recruits some guys, but nowadays, how many wrestlers getting into the business weren't fans first? It seems like practically everybody on the indy scene was a huge mark or smart mark before they got into the business.

 

The way Ricky Steamboat tells it his getting into the business was a total fluke. Girlfriend went to flight attendant school with one of Gagne's daughters, mentioned that her boyfriend had been a wrestler in high school, Gagne happened to recognize the name 'Richard Blood' as he'd wrestled Mike Graham in a state wrestling tournament and Eddie Graham had spoken about him. Total right place at the right time kind of thing.

[JerryvonKramer]

I realise I may be alone in this but here's a trope I hate:

 

The test-of-strength spot in any match that isn't two power guys vs. each other (e.g. Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons or ... I dunno Hogan vs. Warrior). I don't like the test-of-strength spot otherwise because there's often no logical reason for one of the two guys to get involved. There are only two outcomes:

 

1. Stronger guy over powers, establishes strength advantage (does that *need* to be established if one guy is built like a brick shit house and the other one is Tully Blanchard?)

2. Sneaky heel or smart veteran face takes a shortcut and kicks them in the gut (establishing a "smartness" advantage?)

 

In either scenario, if the smaller guy is meant to be using smarts, why's he getting caught up in that scenario in the first place.

 

I'd be happy never to see another test of strength spot in my life.

[Matt D]

Pride

[Death From Above]

Re: Blading. I've been waiting for a player in the NHL to do it for years. High sticks that draw blood are an extra penalty. I'd bust that shit out in a Stanley Cup final without a doubt. And if you got caught it would be great watching the mainstream media have an aneurism over the whole thing trying to figure out where this psycho player came up with such a horrible idea.

 

My stand by response for most of my life to "U KNOW ITS FAKE RIGHT HURR HURR" is "so is surgery on TV, people still watch doctor shows, what's your fucking point". I've never really seen the need for people (and both fans and non-fans alike do it) to classify wrestling as this form of entertainment where the same rules of everything else don't apply. It's just a show on TV with a studio audience that participates more than most other TV shows.

[Loss]

My least favorite thing about wrestling: the vast majority of wrestling matches seem to start from square one, not in terms of living their characters but in terms of the actual work in the ring. Wrestlers don't typically learn from mistakes over time and stop making them -- if a specific type of bump gets a reaction, it gets repeated and becomes a trademark. I wish wrestling was geared toward people with long memories. Like, why can't a wrestler sell their knee being worked over in one match for several weeks, or sell severe injuries for months? I know this happens occasionally, but why isn't it the norm? I wish the actual body of the match meant more in booking.

 

I wish wrestlers weren't suddenly more or less effective in the ring just because of a babyface or heel turn.

 

I realize that would be a horrible business model for wrestling, because it would demand that fans remember too much, but I would personally enjoy it a lot.

[PeteF3]

Re: Blading. I've been waiting for a player in the NHL to do it for years. High sticks that draw blood are an extra penalty. I'd bust that shit out in a Stanley Cup final without a doubt. And if you got caught it would be great watching the mainstream media have an aneurism over the whole thing trying to figure out where this psycho player came up with such a horrible idea.

Ladies and gentlemen, Roberto Rojas.

[soup23]

Loss, the best aspects of Chikara I think hit on the strides you talk about. It honestly can be some of the best long term booking I have seen.

 

Of course they also display my least favorite thing in wrestling, ironic comedy so it all evens out.

[Ditch]

My least favorite thing about wrestling: the vast majority of wrestling matches seem to start from square one, not in terms of living their characters but in terms of the actual work in the ring. Wrestlers don't typically learn from mistakes over time and stop making them -- if a specific type of bump gets a reaction, it gets repeated and becomes a trademark. I wish wrestling was geared toward people with long memories. Like, why can't a wrestler sell their knee being worked over in one match for several weeks, or sell severe injuries for months? I know this happens occasionally, but why isn't it the norm? I wish the actual body of the match meant more in booking.

 

I wish wrestlers weren't suddenly more or less effective in the ring just because of a babyface or heel turn.

 

I realize that would be a horrible business model for wrestling, because it would demand that fans remember too much, but I would personally enjoy it a lot.

One of the things I love about '90s All Japan is that injuries mattered and spots were built on. 6/9/95 is my favorite match because it's chock full of details that reward fans who pay attention.

 

I vividly recall an instance in fall 2001 where Angle had a hurt next as part of his feud with Austin, and it got worked over by the Dudleys after the PPV. I was blown away by the fact that an injury wasn't dropped the instant the next bit of booking (Angle's title win) kicked in.

[Jimmy Redman]

One of the things I love about Sheamus is that his arm never healed properly after being taken apart by Bryan during their feud. Alberto kept working on it after that for his own purposes, and now anytime in a match, no matter who he is facing, if Sheamus takes a posting or otherwise hurts his arm, the old injury flares up and it is a weakness to be exploited by the other guy.

 

So it does happen if you look closely. But yeah I agree with your point that the body of a match should matter more to storyline and everything else out of the ring, and vice versa.

[JNLister]

Re: Blading. I've been waiting for a player in the NHL to do it for years. High sticks that draw blood are an extra penalty. I'd bust that shit out in a Stanley Cup final without a doubt. And if you got caught it would be great watching the mainstream media have an aneurism over the whole thing trying to figure out where this psycho player came up with such a horrible idea.

 

It happened in rugby. It was mainly blood capsules, but in one case the team doctor bladed a player. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodgate

[El-P]

I wish wrestlers weren't suddenly more or less effective in the ring just because of a babyface or heel turn.

That is something I never could stand.

[NintendoLogic]

I realise I may be alone in this but here's a trope I hate:

 

The test-of-strength spot in any match that isn't two power guys vs. each other (e.g. Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons or ... I dunno Hogan vs. Warrior). I don't like the test-of-strength spot otherwise because there's often no logical reason for one of the two guys to get involved. There are only two outcomes:

 

1. Stronger guy over powers, establishes strength advantage (does that *need* to be established if one guy is built like a brick shit house and the other one is Tully Blanchard?)

2. Sneaky heel or smart veteran face takes a shortcut and kicks them in the gut (establishing a "smartness" advantage?)

 

In either scenario, if the smaller guy is meant to be using smarts, why's he getting caught up in that scenario in the first place.

 

I'd be happy never to see another test of strength spot in my life.

I'll co-sign on this. Other than the simultaneous hot tag, the knuckle lock/test of strength is my least favorite spot in wrestling.

 

On the short-term memory front, last year's Orton/Del Rio feud provided a particularly egregious example. In their match at HIAC, Del Rio had Orton scouted and cut him off whenever he tried to go through his signature routines. But in their match the next night on Raw, Orton was hitting all his signature spots with no resistance from Del Rio. I guess the mindset is that they can afford to tinker with the formula on PPV because just about everyone watching is an established fan, but on the shows, there's always someone tuning in for the first time, so they have to establish the signature moves. You might call it the triumph of Flair-ism.