Emotional connection

[cheapshot]

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.

Early to bed on a Saturday? Ouch.

[ButchReedMark]

I had a telly in my room so I still watched Gladiators and Noel's House Party.

[El-P]

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.

 

Same thing for me. The only time was Owen dying.

[overbooked]

Maybe if I watched something live on a week-to-week basis I'd have a different reaction.

I think this is a really important point, and is perhaps linked to knowing the outcome of a match/feud. It is much easier to get 'lost' in a wrestling narrative when watching in real time. Watching old footage it is easy to get distracted by a wider context, or the history of the workers involved or whatever else. Maybe it is harder to care when you already know what happens next - in the next 5 minutes or 5 years.

 

However, as there really isn't the breadth of great episodic wrestling that we had in the past, maybe it is harder to have an emotional connection than ever before. Maybe there are just less opportunities to care.

 

Saying that, I think if watching wrestling didn't move me in some way I'd stop watching altogether. And that is probably a key reason why I have stopped watching in the past. I can appreciate it on a purely cerebal level, but that is not enough for me. There are plenty of matches that can give me shivers.

[El-P]

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.

It's pretty much the exact same path I followed at the time.

[evilclown]

You guys are tougher than me. I get choked up easily. I am the reason for Olympics-style sports coverage.

[jdw]

Sports are real. Wrestling is fake.

 

[JerryvonKramer]

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.

genuine lol at this.

 

I had a telly in my room so I still watched Gladiators and Noel's House Party.

And another one here.

[Matt D]

I will say that I was a hell of a lot more emotionally involved before so many of the wrestlers I was so emotionally connected to died tragically, turned out to be monsters, or both. I had to learn a new way to appreciate wrestling, and I did.