Regional bias in American wrestling talk

[goodhelmet]

 

I never hear anyone criticizing any wrestler's New Yawk accent.

I hate to contradict you Loss, but you are forgetting this classic quote from Vince Russo, explaining why people hate him:

 

People hate the character that they saw in WCW in 2000, and have convinced themselves that that REALLY is Vince Russo, rather then somebody who was just embellishing what people outside of New York wanted to believe New Yorkers were “really” like. People from New York are stereotyped, and there is a prejudice cast upon them if they happened to grow up in that part of the country. What else can it be? A man from Oklahoma, who started working for the WWE about the same time I did, is revered over his comments concerning today’s wrestling, while I am crucified for those same sediments? Why? Because he wears a cowboy hat, and I say “Bro”? Because he comes from more of the south while I come from Brooklyn?

Clearly, there is a pro-South, anti-New York bias, Loss. What else could it be?

 

I disagree with your sediments about regional bias.

 

 

I back Loss's sediments and think your pro-Northeast sentiment is an impediment to your sediment.

[Johnny Sorrow]

 

 

I never hear anyone criticizing any wrestler's New Yawk accent.

I hate to contradict you Loss, but you are forgetting this classic quote from Vince Russo, explaining why people hate him:

 

People hate the character that they saw in WCW in 2000, and have convinced themselves that that REALLY is Vince Russo, rather then somebody who was just embellishing what people outside of New York wanted to believe New Yorkers were “really” like. People from New York are stereotyped, and there is a prejudice cast upon them if they happened to grow up in that part of the country. What else can it be? A man from Oklahoma, who started working for the WWE about the same time I did, is revered over his comments concerning today’s wrestling, while I am crucified for those same sediments? Why? Because he wears a cowboy hat, and I say “Bro”? Because he comes from more of the south while I come from Brooklyn?

Clearly, there is a pro-South, anti-New York bias, Loss. What else could it be?

 

I disagree with your sediments about regional bias.

 

 

I back Loss's sediments and think your pro-Northeast sentiment is an impediment to your sediment.

 

 

Dr. Suess is spinning in his grave like a rotisserie chicken on meth.

[NintendoLogic]

I don't think there's much more to it than the fact that the promotion based in New York was the one that went national. WWE will always be viewed as Northeastern just like NASCAR will always be viewed as Southern regardless of the actual demographics of the drivers. When the other territories went out of business, a good chunk of their fans simply stopped watching rather than switching over to the WWF (look how dead Atlanta has been ever since WCW went under), so there weren't many fans around to keep the territory flame burning. And because the WWF targeted children so aggressively, millions of future fans received that as their first impression of what wrestling "should" look like.

 

It kind of reminds me of the situation with German beer. In the 16th century, Bavaria enacted a law (the Reinheitsgebot) strictly regulating which ingredients could be used in the brewing process. In the 19th century, as Bismarck was trying to unify all the German states into a single nation, Bavaria would only join on the condition that the Reinheitsgebot be applied nationwide. This had the effect of wiping out many northern German beers that used different processes. As a result, when most people think of German beer, they think exclusively of Bavarian-style beer (pale lagers and wheat beers), even though dozens of beer styles are brewed throughout the country and dozens more have since gone extinct.

[MikeCampbell]

Ha, I recently had this to say about one of Cornette's 1997 rants: "Does *anyone* from the South like Connecticut? I haven't been there myself but man does that place seem to angry up the blood in these people ... I'm not a guy to fetishize NYC or any particular part of it but there's honestly a bit of over-the-top regionalism here that I'm not comfortable with."

 

1996 and '97 was just filled with on-air comments from guys like Ross and Cornette about how Connecticut is an "overpriced hellhole." That state also drove Schiavone out of the WWF, I think mostly over the cost of living. It's definitely not nearly used as an indictment of the region itself, but the Northeast and Midwest territories *do* have a much greater reputation for being stodgy and boring whereas all the action was in the South and in Texas. I'm not even saying that's totally untrue but I'm pretty sure it's less true than some people like Cornette would have you believe.

 

Check out Jim's podcast with Jerry Jarrett from November or December of last year. They both talked, at great length, about how much they hated living there.

[NintendoLogic]

BTW, I've gotta say, I love the southern accent drawl. Maybe that plays a part in why Dutch Mantell and Lance Russel are two of my all-time favourite announcers.

 

Lance Russell is from Ohio and doesn't have a Southern accent.

 

Now that I think about it, it's kind of funny. Even in the Southern territories, most of the play-by-play men were either Northerners (Russell, Gordon Solie) or Southerners with broadcasting experience that flattened out whatever accents they may have had, at least on the air (Tony Schiavone, Bill Mercer). Jim Ross is the only notable one I can think of with a really strong accent.

[funkdoc]

honestly, people outside the wrestling bubble don't think of WWF/E as "New York". by and large, all pro wrestling is still seen as stupid shit for rednecks, and i suspect that's why that business has more anxiety over Southernness than most.

 

also, the South does carry strong negative stigmas in politics, probably more so now than in previous generations. once it came out that Hillary Clinton drew far more primary votes than Bernie Sanders among black people in Southern states, lots of the most obnoxious Bernie supporters were saying this was because those Southerners were "low-information voters". as patronizing and racist as you could argue that narrative is, it was quite a popular one among younger people!

 

the South is seen as a major obstacle to many causes widely supported by gen-Xers & millennials, so there's real reason to avoid associating oneself with it.

[Bierschwale]

ECW had a lot of acts that wouldn't play as well outside the Northeast like the FBI but I never once heard ECW called "too Northeastern", and I never hear anyone criticizing any wrestler's New Yawk accent.

 

The Northeast is the regional area that least views itself as a region, and to take WWE, it's had a ton of gimmicks for Northeasterners based on being from their areas. Hunter Hearst-Helmsley, the Mean Street Posse, Enzo & Cass, Zack Ryder, Tazz, the Brooklyn Brawler. Cena's heel reinvention. Heyman.

 

There's also SO MANY distinct Northeastern accents/dialects that are considered to sound atrocious. Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Queens, Long Island, it's a long list.

 

Worth noting, and I could be desperately deeply wrong here, but it seems that a lot of guys regularly given time to cut promos from those areas (and others, like Chicago) are ones whose accents weren't really apparent. Angle & Douglas for Pittsburgh, Punk for Chicago, Miz for Cleveland.

 

Oddly, Seth Rollins has one of the strongest accents in the company and it's not even close to being an Iowan accent. He really just sounds like Linda Belcher.