Your Wrestling Pet Peeves/Utter Hatreds

[dexstar]

Not many things bother me ... but certain blogs on large corporate platforms where every. single. fucking. writer thinks they are an expert on "logical storytelling" are really grating. Saying that a wrestling company needs to just "follow basic storytelling" is, like, a meaningless phrase. I don't think many of these people can explain basic storytelling outside of a wikipedia level (or TV Trope level) understanding of hero's journey. It's also almost always code for "they didn't follow my fantasy booking".

[Mad Dog]

Fan chants really grate in me. I was at NXT on Saturday and I had just had enough by the main event. You're getting into a match and the crowd starts chanting this is awesome. Why? Just enjoy the fucking match and shut up. It's like sitting in a crowd of seals doing tricks for fish.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Not many things bother me ... but certain blogs on large corporate platforms where every. single. fucking. writer thinks they are an expert on "logical storytelling" are really grating. Saying that a wrestling company needs to just "follow basic storytelling" is, like, a meaningless phrase. I don't think many of these people can explain basic storytelling outside of a wikipedia level (or TV Trope level) understanding of hero's journey. It's also almost always code for "they didn't follow my fantasy booking".

Yeah, what you said. Preach on.

[C.S.]

Not many things bother me ... but certain blogs on large corporate platforms where every. single. fucking. writer thinks they are an expert on "logical storytelling" are really grating. Saying that a wrestling company needs to just "follow basic storytelling" is, like, a meaningless phrase. I don't think many of these people can explain basic storytelling outside of a wikipedia level (or TV Trope level) understanding of hero's journey. It's also almost always code for "they didn't follow my fantasy booking".

 

Which blog? Why even hide what you're talking about?! That's weird, honestly. Not like anyone from there is going to see it and get offended.

 

Anyway, the "wrestling is an art form" silliness that gets thrown around here is one of my pet peeves. Wrestling may indeed be an art form, but when the executives and most of the wrestlers don't think so or treat it that way, it becomes a very empty, pretentious talking point.

[Matt D]

I think I'm going to start running with "Wrestling is fiction" instead of wrestling is art. That one's fair, if only because it distracts.

[Johnny Sorrow]

I think what this is all leading to is the realization that we need competitive porn. Like A Porn Battle of the Network Stars.

[Sean Liska]

I hate how "logical" is so often a euphemism for "simple and boring". Lance Storm's perspective is logical. Todd Martin is logical. Jim Cornette's ROH booking was always called logical.

[BillThompson]

Is simple really a bad thing though? I think simple is often the best approach, and that logical thinking within a match that springs forth from a simple place more often than not leads to something worth watching. That's not to say that something can't be simple and boring, or simple, logical, and boring, or logical and boring, or simple, logical, and bad. But, I find that people are too easily dismissive of things being simple.

[Loss]

Simple is good, but there are ways to do it right. I could watch Masa Fuchi work a side headlock for 30 minutes if such a match existed. On the other hand, Doc and Gordy are good at just about everything, except they forget to be interesting.

[jdw]

I think what this is all leading to is the realization that we need competitive porn. Like A Porn Battle of the Network Stars.

 

Valeria Messalina beat us to the idea by almost 2000 years.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

I think what this is all leading to is the realization that we need competitive porn. Like A Porn Battle of the Network Stars.

Valeria Messalina beat us to the idea by almost 2000 years.

 

My new favourite jdw post.

[jdw]

 

So it's a fictional form of entertainment that is designed to generate some sort of emotional response (as a means of generating enough interest to lead to revenue)? Sounds like art to me.

 

Exactly, it's art. The people who rail against it being an art form are pretty funny to me; it's like somehow acknowledging that something like pro wrestling is an art form dirties the word art in some way. Low brow, high brow, whatever you want to call it, art is art and pro wrestling is art.

 

 

Some of us here had the discussion on Wrestling As Art : Porn As Art back on the DVDVR boards in the late 90s or early 00s. Suspect it bled onto other boards. Every argument made for why Wresting Is Art could be countered with an similar example in Porn.

 

Porn is a business. A fantasy entertainment business, just as fake as pro wrestling with it's own kayfabe to "make it look real" that pro wrestling has employed over the years.

 

It's not that wrestling or porn dirty up the word Art. It's just that they're not really art.

[jdw]

As I was not privy to the discussion, then please define art.

 

Define why Wrestling is Art, but Porn isn't Art.

[Laz]

I never said porn wasn't art.

[jdw]

I never said porn wasn't art.

 

Good. We've made progress in the past decade and a half.

[jdw]

The link to "can porn be art" is of limited use. If we define Porn As Art, it means *all* porn is Art.

 

MILF Hunter, Seymour Butts, Bang Brothers, the stuff in Japan with tentacles, rape porn, and that's not even getting into the illegal stuff.

 

No one ever said that The Devil And Mrs. Jones might not have some artistic qualities.

[JerryvonKramer]

If we define Porn As Art, it means *all* porn is Art.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say:

 

"Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X."

 

There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement.

[jdw]

 

If we define Porn As Art, it means *all* porn is Art.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say:

 

"Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X."

 

There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement.

 

 

The earlier statement was that Wrestling Is Art. That statement gives the impression that All Wrestling Is Art, not just the stuff we think is *****+++ classics.

 

Drawing on that paralell, it's not just that The Devil In Mrs. Jones Is Art, but that All Porn Is Art, including MILF Hunter.

 

My point has never been that there are times when pro wrestling has artistic elements, nor that there's certainly some porn that has as well.

 

It's just that if one wants to the world of pro wrestling is an art world, then we can apply that to the vast world of porn.

[The Man in Blak]

 

 

If we define Porn As Art, it means *all* porn is Art.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say:

 

"Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X."

 

There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement.

 

 

The earlier statement was that Wrestling Is Art. That statement gives the impression that All Wrestling Is Art, not just the stuff we think is *****+++ classics.

 

Drawing on that paralell, it's not just that The Devil In Mrs. Jones Is Art, but that All Porn Is Art, including MILF Hunter.

 

My point has never been that there are times when pro wrestling has artistic elements, nor that there's certainly some porn that has as well.

 

It's just that if one wants to the world of pro wrestling is an art world, then we can apply that to the vast world of porn.

 

 

I think you're fixating on the idea of "Art" in this case as high art, which is fine, but it's a different definition than what I presented in my post. I added the link to the New Statesman piece to try and imply that it's not an out-of-left-field discussion -- it is something that has been talked about in mainstream media -- but that piece does actually come to different conclusions about Art with a capital A that I don't agree with, so I probably should have skipped the link altogether or clarified my position further.

[The Man in Blak]

Susan Sontag was a real ring general.

[jdw]

 

 

 

If we define Porn As Art, it means *all* porn is Art.

Not sure this holds. You can just as well say:

 

"Some porn is art, but not all porn is art. Porn that is art fulfills criteria X."

 

There's no need for the absolutism of the "if, then" statement.

 

 

The earlier statement was that Wrestling Is Art. That statement gives the impression that All Wrestling Is Art, not just the stuff we think is *****+++ classics.

 

Drawing on that paralell, it's not just that The Devil In Mrs. Jones Is Art, but that All Porn Is Art, including MILF Hunter.

 

My point has never been that there are times when pro wrestling has artistic elements, nor that there's certainly some porn that has as well.

 

It's just that if one wants to the world of pro wrestling is an art world, then we can apply that to the vast world of porn.

 

 

I think you're fixating on the idea of "Art" in this case as high art, which is fine, but it's a different definition than what I presented in my post. I added the link to the New Statesman piece to try and imply that it's not an out-of-left-field discussion -- it is something that has been talked about in mainstream media -- but that piece does actually come to different conclusions about Art with a capital A that I don't agree with, so I probably should have skipped the link altogether or clarified my position further.

 

 

No, I'm not fixating on the idea that all art is high art.

 

My point is that if you're calling Ian Rose vs Axel Rose art (or Art) or some backyard wrestlers art (or Art), then you're also saying golden showers porn and Japanese tentacle porn is art.

 

Now I'm not going to say that some master of golden showers porn or Japanese tentacle porn didn't create something artistic. Neither are my thing, so I haven't spent time sifting through them to make a judgement call on the great artistic achievements in those niches. I'm also certain that with enough blow up his nose, some idiot golden showers director did think he was crafting some great piece of sexual artwork.

 

Just that if we're willing to say that Wrestling is Art, then extend it to Porn and ponder what that that applies.

 

Side note: as most here who have read what I've written over the decades know, I'm hardly a prude on the notion of porn. I've riffed on it often, and would admit to being a consumer of it over the years like being a consumer of pro wrestling. But like 99.99% of porn consumers, even those who might appreciate artistic elements, I don't consumer porn as art.

 

I suspect that 99.99% holds for Wrestling as well.

 

It's really only hardcore idiots like us circle jerking on message boards about the depth and greatness of pro wrestling who'd even think to toss the term out.

 

Well... and "scholars" who try to write up pro wrestling in papers, most of which tend to be really bad when read by hardcores like us.

[jdw]

 

 

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill.

- wikipedia

 

 

 

Who was the better artist: Jamie Gillis or Ric Flair?

 

Now that I think of it, I seem to recall someone in that old thread using Gillis "work" and "physiology" as a comp to wrestling work and psyc. Wasn't me... I'm pretty sure it was Idol. I would have used Ginger Lynn.

[JerryvonKramer]

I second that last sentence (about scholars) and even turned down an invite to be part of an academic study after they replied to my reply by essentially saying "shhh, knock the actual fan stuff off".

[goodhelmet]

I know porn is a hobby for some here but not for all and could be a reason for some people to avoid the board. Wrestling is porn has been talked about before and was a low point for the board. Lets kill the discussion now. If you have a problem with it, feel free to throw me a PM. We can compare wrestling to thousands of things. We already did it with porn. Move on and end this current strand of discussion. Thank you.

[jdw]

I second that last sentence (about scholars) and even turned down an invite to be part of an academic study after they replied to my reply by essentially saying "shhh, knock the actual fan stuff off".

 

Yep.

 

I'm trying to remember the one released in the 80s or early 90s that was painful to read. It seemed like someone who turned their thesis into a book. There were some kernels of things in it, but as a whole it's the type of thing that had hardcores rolling their eyes.