Emotional connection

[Graham Crackers]

I think wrestling is infinitely worse when you care about who wins and who loses. I've been down that road and it's kind of exhausting and can really distract you from the broader picture.

 

When you step back and look at wrestling as an over-the-top spectacle and broad farce, it's much, much better. When people get focused in on their guy losing to Cena or whoever, it kind of reminds me of someone who would be upset at Mr.T losing to Stallone at the end of Rocky III. Yes, Clubber Lang was awesome. But he was created to job.

 

Anyway...

I think everyone is on a different page about what this "emotional connection" thing actually means. Maybe I'm the one on a different page. I don't know. I don't really care about who wins or loses. When I say I've got an emotional investment in a character it doesn't mean I'll be crushed when they don't win. It means I really want to see how their "story" develops and a loss can be just as compelling as a win. When I watch a movie where I care about a character and the film has a sad ending it doesn't make me hate the movie.

 

Who brought up math in the thread?

 

If we're not emotionally connected to something we laugh at, it's because we did some math in our head to determine if it was funny? No... the shit was just funny.

Maybe this is just you being confused about my tone when my words are written down. "Mathematical criteria" was meant to be a hypothetical process that I would imagine someone who wasn't experiencing the emotional aspects of comedy might have to use to attempt to evaluate comedy. I would have hoped that my phrasing was kind of funny to someone but it seems to have fallen flat. Oh well.

 

Is laughter an emotion? Sure.

 

Does that emotion need some deep connection to the story / joke / event to create the laughter? Not really.

 

Richard Pryor. Cheetahs. Gazelles. It's just a funny story.

People like a lot of stupid shit and they also get attached to stupid shit. I care about lots of stupid shit! No, being able to experience something on an emotional level doesn't automatically give that thing depth but a lack of depth doesn't mean you can't also care about it. I'm sure we all know somebody who has an emotional connection to a dumb pop song from their youth (that is if we don't have a connection like that ourselves).

 

Then there's this wrestling thing that you and I obviously care about because we're talking about it on prowrestlingonly.com. It may be kitsch and some (many, actually most) people think it's pretty stupid but I love it. It's fun, charmingly lowbrow and a little sleazy. Now because I enjoy it so much I feel an emotional connection to my favorite performers and their best performances. It's similar to how I feel about my favorite writers, musicians, artists, cartoonists, or directors and their best works. If I watch a wrestling match or a feud and I liked it enough that I'm going to want to watch it again then I obviously care about it, regardless of how silly pro wrestling is. I may not be moved by it the same way I'm moved by great works of art but there is still some sort of connection.

 

Wrestling is too raw for me to actually find it stimulating on a purely intellectual level. Fujiwara vs Yamazaki from 1989 is one of my favorite matches and part of what I like about it is the careful strategies of both wrestlers. For most of the match it is slowly building on the mat and that definitely keeps my brain interested but if I didn't also care about a great storyteller like Fujiwara and I couldn't get emotionally invested in the match before it gets really heated during the headbutt section I probably wouldn't like it all that much.

[marrklarr]

When you step back and look at wrestling as an over-the-top spectacle and broad farce, it's much, much better.

Yes!

 

When I say I've got an emotional investment in a character it doesn't mean I'll be crushed when they don't win. It means I really want to see how their "story" develops and a loss can be just as compelling as a win.

Yes!

 

It's fun, charmingly lowbrow and a little sleazy. Now because I enjoy it so much I feel an emotional connection to my favorite performers and their best performances. It's similar to how I feel about my favorite writers, musicians, artists, cartoonists, or directors and their best works. If I watch a wrestling match or a feud and I liked it enough that I'm going to want to watch it again then I obviously care about it, regardless of how silly pro wrestling is. I may not be moved by it the same way I'm moved by great works of art but there is still some sort of connection.

Yes!

[JNLister]

I find emotional connections to wrestlers are strained when they kill their wife and son.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I think wrestling is infinitely worse when you care about who wins and who loses.

I think the exact opposite of this.

[JerryvonKramer]

I think everyone is on a different page about what this "emotional connection" thing actually means.

This.

[Matt D]

I always feel that way about "Greatest of All Time." There's no set criteria.

[Loss]

Perhaps there's a better way to explain this. Have you ever watched a match that you could admit was great, but you still didn't give a shit about it? Matches where you don't feel that way when it's over have the emotional connection. The term is probably a misnomer. As much as I love a lot of pro wrestling and wish it no ill will, I also have no desire to take it out on a date, and I probably won't shed any tears when watching it. It's not something I'll hope sees me in a positive light when I'm on my deathbed, and I don't feel anything for a wrestling match other than enjoyment.

 

Emotional connection would be better described as caring about what you're watching, as opposed to strictly acknowledging the greatness of a match in an academic way.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

I think wrestling is infinitely worse when you care about who wins and who loses.

I think the exact opposite of this.

 

Yeah, when I referenced caring about who wins or loses, I didn't mean it from a "OMG stupid booking" perspective. More that I am actively cheering for someone in the match.

[ohtani's jacket]

Perhaps there's a better way to explain this. Have you ever watched a match that you could admit was great, but you still didn't give a shit about it? Matches where you don't feel that way when it's over have the emotional connection. The term is probably a misnomer. As much as I love a lot of pro wrestling and wish it no ill will, I also have no desire to take it out on a date, and I probably won't shed any tears when watching it. It's not something I'll hope sees me in a positive light when I'm on my deathbed, and I don't feel anything for a wrestling match other than enjoyment.

 

Emotional connection would be better described as caring about what you're watching, as opposed to strictly acknowledging the greatness of a match in an academic way.

I agree with all this and think it's perfectly natural, but there's something arbitrary about caring about a match. I've tried to watch Buddy Rose because everything that people say about him makes him seem like a guy I would love, but he doesn't excite me the way say Mocho Cota does, and the weird thing about that was when I watched Mocho Cota's stuff five years ago he didn't leave that huge an impression on me. I guess we all read people's comments and can't understand why they don't care about a wrestler as much as us; the original context for this thread was Kevin not being able to get behind Joshi wrestlers, who I think are probably the easiest Japanese wrestlers to get behind because they wear their hearts on their sleeves and you see them grow as workers over their careers, but at the same time I'm tired of pretty much all of them. To me that sums up how fine a line there is between caring and not caring and I'm not sure it's always about the wrestlers and their ability to make you care. A lot of the time it seems to involve extraneous factors. I'd be interested in hearing from anybody who consistently cares about the same sort of stuff.

[Childs]

I wax and wane on guys as well, and I agree that it's arbitrary. But there are wrestlers who consistently excite me. Matches too. When I see Hashimoto get that look of ferocious determination and start throwing kicks and overhand chops, I always get fired up with him. When I watch Andre and Hansen going at it like rampaging dinosaurs, I always think "Awesome!" Then there are guys I respect but don't react to as strongly. I'm thinking of Negro Casas, Steamboat, Bret Hart, a lot of Terry Funk. With Lawler, his babyface performances in big matches hit me in the gut where I'm more clinically amused by his hide-the-chain heeling. I don't see any profound underlying reason for this. It's the same with songs, movies, whatever. I hear "Ticket to Ride," I get tingles. I hear "Yesterday," I think it's an incredibly tight piece of craft but that's it. I watch "Dazed and Confused," I'm awash in emotions about youth. I watch "Vertigo," I just think it's nifty work. I don't feel the need to examine that alchemy past a certain point. I love talking about how things are crafted, but there's a point where if two works are both great and I react to one more powerfully, it just is.

[Loss]

If you want to attempt to point to something tangible, the closest thing I can come up with is that the matches I connect with the most seem to be the ones where the stakes seem high. Some of that could be attributed to things like titles, booking and how big the show is, but some of it is also a matter of performance. If the wrestlers convince me that the outcome of this match is of paramount importance through their work in the ring, and if the victory feels really earned through the work in the ring, then that's where my "emotional connection" comes in. Body language and actions that convey a desperation to win, shifts in momentum that have consequences, great selling and even a few close call false finishes (which can admittedly be overdone) will get me there most of the time.

[Kevin Ridge]

Feel like people are looking at this one from different angles. You really can't compare the feelings you have for entertainment/TV program for people in your real life. That didn't seem to be the intent of the question by OJ either. I definitely cared more about my guys winning when I watched as a kid/teenager. Wins and loses should still matter as should the importance of titles. The idea that they don't matter anymore makes me wonder why we even watch. Too much even booking of trading wins going on these days. But this is just one of those areas as fans on how we view wrestling different. What we enjoy most about it won't be the same. I don't mind watching an excellent well performed match here and there. But it's a heck of much more enjoyable match to me when I care about the wrestler(s) in the ring.

[JerryvonKramer]

The disconnect for me here is the winning and losing aspect. I probably don't care who loses or wins.

[cheapshot]

The disconnect for me here is the winning and losing aspect. I probably don't care who loses or wins.

Is this because over the last 10 years or so we have been taught to think wins and loses don't matter?

[overbooked]

In terms of 'caring' and particularly caring who wins and loses, is it worth thinking about how we individually approach wrestling?

 

If we approach wrestling as a sport (albeit a pre-determined one) then maybe we are more open to making an emotional connection, or at least caring who wins. If I watch a football match I enjoy it a whole lot more if I want one team to win more than the other. There is something almost cathartic about sport in that sense - cheering someone on to win within a pre-defined set of rules (ie any sport) is a release and escape from the unfairness and uncertainty of the real world. That is why blown-calls (or in wrestling, screwy finishes) can mean so much. While wrestling is more than a sport, I do think it works best when sporting tropes are at its heart, and when I'm able to lose myself in the contest as I would do with any other sport.

 

If we approach wrestling as an art form, or entertainment, then I guess it is easier to be detached, to admire the craft and to not really connect on a gut level. However, being completely objective seems odd too. Do we watch a movie purely to admire the direction and cinematography? Do we read a novel just to marvel at its construction? Surely, even at this level, we need to relate with the art in some way. There is art, and there is art that touches us personally and we actively care about. Same with wrestling. I guess it matters less who wins and loses, as a loss can still be constructed in an emotionally satisfying way. Yet, I still think when I watch wrestling more from this perspective I want it to move me in some way.

 

Or what if we watch wrestling because we are interested in the business? I'm sure we're all fascinated by the industry to come extent, but watching purely from this perspective seems a little sad - to string out the movie analogy, it is a bit like going to the cinema just to keep tabs on the highest grossing films.

 

I'm sure most wrestling fandom is a little bit of all the above, but perhaps this difference of approach can explain why for some of us an emotional connection is vital, while for others they don't see that at all. That wrestling is such an odd mix of sport/entertainment/art/business makes it harder to unpick, but ultimately satisfying in its complexity - it can do different things for different people.

 

Anyway, enough of my rambling...

[JerryvonKramer]

The disconnect for me here is the winning and losing aspect. I probably don't care who loses or wins.

Is this because over the last 10 years or so we have been taught to think wins and loses don't matter?

 

No, but it may be because over the past 10 years or so I almost exclusively watch old wrestling and don't care about the current product at all.

 

For me "emotional connection" is more about just giving a shit about what's happening. Being invested in the characters. Getting involved in the story of the match. Feeling a tinge of excitement at the high spots, which these days might be writing "holy shit that was awesome" in my notes.

 

Wrestling makes me laugh a lot. A LOT. I love its absurd little self-contained universe. And that's why I love posting here because guys like Loss just get it.

 

Wrestling has only made me cry twice: once with Flair's fairytale win over Vader at Starrcade 93, and once when Macho Man died.

[cheapshot]

The disconnect for me here is the winning and losing aspect. I probably don't care who loses or wins.

Is this because over the last 10 years or so we have been taught to think wins and loses don't matter?

 

No, but it may be because over the past 10 years or so I almost exclusively watch old wrestling and don't care about the current product at all.

 

For me "emotional connection" is more about just giving a shit about what's happening. Being invested in the characters. Getting involved in the story of the match. Feeling a tinge of excitement at the high spots, which these days might be writing "holy shit that was awesome" in my notes.

 

Wrestling makes me laugh a lot. A LOT. I love it's absurd little self-contained universe. And that's why I love posting here because guys like Loss just get it.

 

Wrestling has only made me cry twice: once with Flair's fairytale win over Vader at Starrcade 93, and once when Macho Man died.

 

 

Crying, I am not sure....I think potentially the RAW is OWEN is a time I welled up due to the sheer raw (no pun intended) emotion that was being conveyed.

 

I was GUTTED when Savage passed away and was in a right pisser of a mood the day I found out. I don't know how I am going to react when Flair pops his clogs in many years to come.

 

I always am a little bit shocked/upset when a favourite of mine passes away though.

[Loss]

It matters to me who wins and who loses, especially when there's a clear chase to victory that plays itself out over several matches that span years. Those are some of the greatest feuds in the history of wrestling. If you don't watch something like Jumbo vs Tenryu, Misawa vs Kawada, Austin vs Rock, Liger vs Otani or Flair vs Luger play itself out over a few years and eventually want the guy doing the chasing to get the big win, then you're missing out on a really satisfying part of watching pro wrestling.

[JerryvonKramer]

It matters to me who wins and who loses, especially when there's a clear chase to victory that plays itself out over several matches that span years. Those are some of the greatest feuds in the history of wrestling. If you don't watch something like Jumbo vs Tenryu, Misawa vs Kawada, Austin vs Rock, Liger vs Otani or Flair vs Luger play itself out over a few years and eventually want the guy doing the chasing to get the big win, then you're missing out on a really satisfying part of watching pro wrestling.

This is also true. I'm a little conflicted on this. I agree absolutely that it matters who wins in something like Tenryu vs. Jumbo.

 

I think possibly MASSIVE wins and losses in big feuds matter, but those matches account for less than 2% of all the matches you'll likely see, period. I even think within big feuds sometimes it doesn't matter either.

 

Without looking it up, I honestly couldn't tell you who won Tenryu/ Jumbo vs. Yatsu / Choshu '86. I can't remember, and I'm not sure how important it was to my enjoyment of it despite being one of the best matches I've ever seen.

 

I might say something like: "most of the time it doesn't matter, but in the 2% of times that it does, it's really important". Something like that.

[evilclown]

It matters to me who wins and who loses, especially when there's a clear chase to victory that plays itself out over several matches that span years. Those are some of the greatest feuds in the history of wrestling. If you don't watch something like Jumbo vs Tenryu, Misawa vs Kawada, Austin vs Rock, Liger vs Otani or Flair vs Luger play itself out over a few years and eventually want the guy doing the chasing to get the big win, then you're missing out on a really satisfying part of watching pro wrestling.

 

I agree with this. I think that's a cool storyline you can appreciate. I guess I'm talking more about the guys angry because Damien Sandow did a job on WWE Main Event. The people who couldn't appreciate Misawa over Jumbo was a great story because they were Jumbo fans. If that makes sense?

[Loss]

Yes, that does make sense and I think we're on the same page. Doing a job on a C-show isn't great, but getting a win on a C-show isn't eons better.

[jdw]

I think everyone is on a different page about what this "emotional connection" thing actually means. Maybe I'm the one on a different page. I don't know. I don't really care about who wins or loses. When I say I've got an emotional investment in a character it doesn't mean I'll be crushed when they don't win. It means I really want to see how their "story" develops and a loss can be just as compelling as a win. When I watch a movie where I care about a character and the film has a sad ending it doesn't make me hate the movie.

And my thought is that one can care about a "storyline" in wrestling or some other art without it being a big emotional thing. It can as easily be a cerebral thing: I want to see how it turns out.

 

I gave that example of The Wire up above.

 

I know for a lot of people, Wallace getting popped was a big emotional moment of the first season. For me it wasn't: it was clear that when Stringer and Avon were cleaning up "loose ends", and Wallace chose not to "stay away" that he was going to get popped. Just obvious storytelling, to a large degree because it also had a Real Life vibe to it: Stringer & Avon wouldn't give it a second thought, even though Wallace did them right earlier in the season. Kid was a risk, he was disposable, and there were a dozen kids they could replace him with.

 

I know a lot of people also found it emotional because his homies did the deed. Well... that's obvious storytelling as well, and has a Real Life truth to it as well. Folks is this line of work often have been taken out by people close to them, because it's a safety and letting down the guard moment. Folks also make their bones by doing the deed like this, and it's a way of pulling them deeper into their wall of silence that gets erected: they have blood on their hands.

 

So it didn't emotionally blow me away.

 

What blew me away was the cerebral part. The writers had the balls to do it, rather than letting a well liked character stay gone at his grandmas never to be head from again, with us to assume that everything turned out right. No, that "nice" and "troubled" kid was already fucked up, and couldn't leave his life behind. It's a choice a lot of kids make, and some of them end up eating bullets because of it. David Simon & Co weren't pussies about showing it to us. In turn, how they crafted the arc, and how they wrote out and shot that final scene with Wallace, and the after effect (the cops finding him, Dee's reaction, and the long decent of Dee setting himself up to be not trusted by Stringer after that) was all brilliantly done.

 

I don't expect everyone to see it that way. I'm sure that a lot of people were all, "Holy Shit... they killed WALLACE!!!!" over it. Nor do I want to rain on their parade with a big old, "No shit... you have been paying attention, right? Kind of fucking obvious" spot. But in turn, it would be annoying for someone to view my thinking it was brilliant as being all emotional about it.

 

That's my point: people see shit differently. One can enjoy the shit out of Pro Wrestling (and other forms of art and entertainment) without having an emotional connection with every thing they enjoy. Just because one people can't view it like that, and can't remotely conceive it's possible without reducing Pro Wrestling Enjoyment to Math... doesn't mean that their version of wrestling enjoyment is universal. People pushing back at this aren't saying you need to enjoy wrestling in a different way. Just that some of us do, and cut us a little bit of slack that it's a perfectly fine way to enjoy wrestling if that's the way some folks find some of it fun.

 

John

[jdw]

Wrestling has only made me cry twice: once with Flair's fairytale win over Vader at Starrcade 93, and once when Macho Man died.

Owen dropping dead.

 

And that was because it was pro wrestling, not some wrestler dying outside of the ring via overdose or years of the hard life like Macho. Even Misawa dying in the ring felt like something that had been inevitable... that it would happen to someone, and he was as likely as anyone given his prominent role in dangerous stuff.

 

Owen... that was different. It was also real.

[ohtani's jacket]

Do we watch a movie purely to admire the direction and cinematography?

Man, I watch a lot of films that I enjoy for the direction and cinematography more than the story. Maybe they wouldn't rank high on a list of my favourite movies, but if we were separating "best" from "favourite" they would, even if they didn't particularly move me.

 

I used to care a lot about wrestling when I was in high school. I was gutted when Montreal happened and feared for the future of the WWF. I was staunchly pro-WWF when I first came online; turned my back on Bret, who had been my hero to that point; got emotional when Foley won the title, even though he wasn't a guy I'd grown up on; and had a whole bunch of other reactions based on a rather parochial fandom. I cared a lot about Japanese wrestling and workrate when I was younger too. But as people change, and their tastes mature and develop, I agree that watching wrestling becomes more often than not a cerebral exercise. I often get excited about a match such as Breaks/Ryan or the Virus/Maya match I saw recently, and I certainly cared about those matches but more in the sense that they were matches that got me pumped. These days I tend to care more about whether a match was boring or interesting than emotional and tend to draw a pretty firm line between the two. I don't think wrestling compares to the aching disappointment of sports and I don't think I'll ever really care about a worker the way I cared about a guy like Bret Hart.

 

In the past few weeks I've watched stuff like Rose/Adonis, Rose/Martel and Bockwinkel/Hennig, all of which I thought were pretty good, but watching them I didn't feel anything. My enjoyment as purely cerebral. A waste of time? Maybe, but I wanted to check them off my wrestling "bucket" list so to speak. Maybe if I watched something live on a week-to-week basis I'd have a different reaction.

[ButchReedMark]

The only time wrestling made me cry is when Barbarian and Butch Reed beat Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes when I was 7 in 1992 because they cheated and after the tears I had a massive kick off about it and was sent to bed with no tea.