Why does puro get so much love? Why does lucha get so dismissed?

[Grimmas]

 

 

This feels like much more hard work to me than my other experiences as a wrestling fan.

You learned to love Dory. You set out to watch all the great AJPW. How is this any different?

I watched the stuff and felt compelled for whatever reason to continue rather than being put off.

 

Dory was part of my wider project to deep dive into the 70s, I also looked at Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Giant Baba, The Destroyer, and others. Through it all, I gained a love of 70s AJPW and of the old NWA style.

 

Plenty of people dismiss that. It's longer form, it's slower in parts. I get "Dory is boring" jokes as par for the course. I don't really mind. I think the high end stuff speaks for itself, and all my reviews are there if anyone else wants to check that stuff out for themselves.

 

People kinda roll their eyes when I point them towards a 45-minute tag from 1977 ... something like Funks vs. Jumbo / Baba. Masterpiece of the style, textbook excellent wrestling in my view. Some people would rather watch five-minute Earthquake matches or the latest RAW. I get that, it's all cool.

 

During GWE, people were flat out saying stuff like Jumbo sucks, I cared because I thought it was important that someone with a career like that got his due. He fell from #1 in 2006 to #11 in 2016, which suggests that en masse people valued 70s AJPW less than they did ten years ago. I was against that because I didn't think GWE should be less a reflection of values and more a reflection of who had the greatest career with the most great matches in it.

 

Now GWE is over it doesn't matter, there are no stakes. I don't care in the slightest who does and doesn't watch 70s AJPW. If you find Jumbo boring, cool. If you think he sucks, fine. It doesn't matter.

 

And that's what I've been telling you since the start of this thread. It doesn't matter if I think lucha sucks or if you think 70s AJPW sucks. I'm not gonna try to make you watch Dory matches to try to change your mind.

 

I encourage people to discuss matches and review them.

 

Like I said, individuals don't matter. It's the overall history and narratives. If you don't have time for lucha, that's cool. If you want to talk about the overall history of wrestling, great matches, great workers, and exclude lucha that's an issue.

[Loss]

Calling understanding lucha "hard work" trivializes actual hard work. Asking someone who knows, "Hey, why is Thing A this way?" and being told the answer is just seeking an answer and getting an answer from a trusted source. Those types of things are common in Japanese wrestling and even some territory wrestling.

 

- Why are Japanese crowds so quiet?

- Why do lots of WWF crowds only pop for entrance music and finishing moves?

- Why do they go straight to the finish after the hot tag in most Mid South matches?

- Why does the referee still enforce the rules in No DQ matches in Houston?

- Why do most AWA tags have a double heat?

- What is the Code of Honor?

- How does the point system work in UWFI?

- Why is the crowd in the Worldwide Arena acting like that?

- In Memphis, if it's truly an "expiration of time" match, shouldn't it go all the way to very last second of air time?

- Why don't WWF announcers do time calls and countdown when the time limit is about to expire?

- Why don't wrestlers in Japan throw punches as much?

 

You get the idea.

[Matt D]

People have been conditioned to ask the wrong questions with lucha. I think I've been consistent in my view on that throughout the thread.

 

Also, why do you think most AWA tags have a double heat?

[stro]

 

History and narratives are controlled by the individual, so I don't know if you're ever going to find an acceptable resolution for your issue

WTF?

 

History of America is not made up by me, there is a clear history and narrative. Same with history and narratives of everything.

 

Doesn't matter if I go around and say Nirvana didn't change the boring music industry, that is the history and narrative. I, as an individual, alone can not change that.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with history is written by the victors. As you say in your own post, history and narrative are the same thing. Narratives are controlled by people, and as such, history is controlled by individuals, not necessarily pure fact. You can't change the narratives of the individuals that control history, or lucha coverage in this instance.

[Grimmas]

 

 

History and narratives are controlled by the individual, so I don't know if you're ever going to find an acceptable resolution for your issue

WTF?

 

History of America is not made up by me, there is a clear history and narrative. Same with history and narratives of everything.

 

Doesn't matter if I go around and say Nirvana didn't change the boring music industry, that is the history and narrative. I, as an individual, alone can not change that.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with history is written by the victors. As you say in your own post, history and narrative are the same thing. Narratives are controlled by people, and as such, history is controlled by individuals, not necessarily pure fact. You can't change the narratives of the individuals that control history, or lucha coverage in this instance.

 

I can?

 

I can try. I can talk about lucha, review lucha, etc... I don't have the power to change what the narratives are. I can try, but I only have 333 twitter followers and about 500 people listening to my podcast. Not nearly enough people to make that kind of change.

 

To the majority of online wrestling fans, puro is the best form of wrestling and lucha is not worth their time.

[stro]

 

 

 

History and narratives are controlled by the individual, so I don't know if you're ever going to find an acceptable resolution for your issue

WTF?

 

History of America is not made up by me, there is a clear history and narrative. Same with history and narratives of everything.

 

Doesn't matter if I go around and say Nirvana didn't change the boring music industry, that is the history and narrative. I, as an individual, alone can not change that.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with history is written by the victors. As you say in your own post, history and narrative are the same thing. Narratives are controlled by people, and as such, history is controlled by individuals, not necessarily pure fact. You can't change the narratives of the individuals that control history, or lucha coverage in this instance.

 

I can?

 

I can try. I can talk about lucha, review lucha, etc... I don't have the power to change what the narratives are. I can try, but I only have 333 twitter followers and about 500 people listening to my podcast. Not nearly enough people to make that kind of change.

 

To the majority of online wrestling fans, puro is the best form of wrestling and lucha is not worth their time.

 

You're agreeing with me, you know

[Grimmas]

The narratives have to change, because they are wrong.

[stro]

Wrong to you, not wrong to the people who control the narratives, nor the people who agree with them.

[Dylan Waco]

Why are people seemingly so opposed to the idea of "hard work" involved in the enjoyment of something? People say lucha being harder to grasp at first as though it's a criticism and a black mark on the style. Gravity's Rainbow requires more hard work to enjoy than Harry Potter does, but that doesn't make it less of an accomplishment or mean that it has less merit.

 

Pynchon is terrible

[JRGoldman]

 

Why are people seemingly so opposed to the idea of "hard work" involved in the enjoyment of something? People say lucha being harder to grasp at first as though it's a criticism and a black mark on the style. Gravity's Rainbow requires more hard work to enjoy than Harry Potter does, but that doesn't make it less of an accomplishment or mean that it has less merit.

 

Pynchon is terrible

 

 

Some people in this thread would say that means I have made the perfect analogy.

[Hector]

This is an amazing thread you guys have put together here.

 

Someone ask a question that requires a bit of historical and cultural context. Jetlag does a stellar job setting the right tone. It immediately gets ignored in favor of prodding JvK's "because lucha mostly sucks" comment. Eventually the rest of the thread turns into a lucha grievance party all while torpedoing any attempts at answering the question in the topic title.

[Grimmas]

Wrong to you, not wrong to the people who control the narratives, nor the people who agree with them.

So lucha should be ignored and is inferior to puro and american wrestling?

[cpst]

The narratives have to change, because they are wrong.

Where do I read the narrative that you speak of? Have you tried contacting the authors to see if they would change it?

[stro]

 

Wrong to you, not wrong to the people who control the narratives, nor the people who agree with them.

So lucha should be ignored and is inferior to puro and american wrestling?

 

Maybe. I never said it should be ignored in the first place. The majority have spoken. Lucha isn't covered as much because less people are interested in lucha, and don't care to force themselves to watch lucha until they like it. You can put up the good fight for eternity, but telling people they're wrong and missing out and need to put effort into liking something is not going to entice people that already are not interested or know they don't like lucha to watch. Certainly not the people who control the talking points and coverage, either.

 

Start a popular newsletter and cover lucha all the time. Clicking the link to your blog, the focus is on Colosseum Home Videos and the top 100 matches has just a handful of lucha matches on it. Your own list is pretty dominated by matches from Japan. 300 twitter followers can be thousands of eyeballs with just a couple of retweets. It's never been easier to connect with lots of people and get your shit out there. You're not going to change anything on this tiny, niche site. Start posting more lucha on your blog, at a regular clip, send links out on Twitter, post matches and links on Wreddit. Don't start people out with 50 year olds they've never heard of mat wrestling for 40 minutes.

 

Start out with guys they are familiar with (Rey/Juvi/Psychosis/La Parka/Eddie, La Sombra, NJPW guys in Mexico, popular guys on LU) and ease them into Mexican indies and bloodbaths with people they don't know. Instead of telling people they need to put in work to understand or appreciate, or that they don't understand the context, or that they have some kind of cultural bias, explain to them the context. Explain to them why this is great and how it works. Teach, don't lecture. You have many platforms to get the word out. You're not using them. You need visual content, because people just aren't going to read walls of texts. That means gifs or video links when possible.

[overbooked]

Maybe. I never said it should be ignored in the first place. The majority have spoken. Lucha isn't covered as much because less people are interested in lucha, and don't care to force themselves to watch lucha until they like it. You can put up the good fight for eternity, but telling people they're wrong and missing out and need to put effort into liking something is not going to entice people that already are not interested or know they don't like lucha to watch. Certainly not the people who control the talking points and coverage, either.

 

Us lucha fans could certainly do more to evangelise. But it is a real shame that this thread was derailed so quickly. "Lucha sucks" isn't a critique. There could have been a really interesting discussion on cultural imperialism. I tried to suggest several pages back that there are fundamentally different schools of wrestling fan, to explain why lucha isn't so popular. There are so many angles to look at this, to understand why lucha is a struggle for some people, and to also nail down the various cultural, economic, social and personal reasons why we love wrestling.

 

However, when there is a lack of empathy and when some people are convinced there is a single truth to wrestling such discussion is far too difficult to sustain.

[JerryvonKramer]

The key question about coverage remains this one:

 

Three questions:

1. Does anyone have any idea of how much Mexican fans in Mexico care about or watch US wrestling? Same for Japanese fans in Japan.

2. Does it matter?

3. To what extent do you expect people of a country to be concerned primarily with themselves vs those who live abroad?

Most people from most places are concerned with stuff at home first and stuff abroad second.

 

USA has a reputation around the world for being particularly insular in this regard. So why would anyone expect fans from that country to give equal weight to wrestling from another place?

 

I think it should be celebrated that fans have watched puro or lucha AT ALL. That in itself is a remarkable thing. The relative weighting matters less than the fact that there are so many fans who have crossed international borders to watch. That in itself challenges stereotypes about Americans not caring about anyone but themselves.

 

Of course, I'm from a country that tends to think of itself first and everyone else second too. I've tended to think of wrestling as "an American thing" and historically felt I could view it from an ironic distance. But as I've learned about British traditions of wrestling through some of the wonderful sites out there, Regal shoots, and people pimping old WOS here, I've come to want a more homegrown product on a national level, and have high hopes of the ITV WOS revamp being something big and sustained rather than a one off. I imagine this is of greater interest to British fans than it is to people who live elsewhere. Hardcore connessiuers and enthusiasts from USA and will be interested, but most people won't be. I don't see that as a great issue.

 

I still don't see why coverage and weighting is an issue to anyone. It's almost like complaining that French art house films don't get the same coverage as the latest blockbuster out of Hollywood. I mean, for one, they are speaking French and for two, the audience for serious chin stroking films is niche.

 

I just don't know what planet you are living on if you expect the nature of these things to change. An American publication is going to gravitate towards American concerns in whatever field. You should celebrate how remarkable the wrestling community has been in looking beyond the horizons of the border.

 

There could have been a really interesting discussion on cultural imperialism.

Nope. Anyone who thinks the problem with this thread has been that we didn't talk about this enough is sorely mistaken.

[Herodes]

No Parv, you tried to go down the anti-intellectual "SJW" right-wing label route. But what should one expect from approaching a thread you've described as "utter wank".

 

I think it's fair to say that wrestling discussion on the internet peaked relatively early in the late 90s as DVDVR grew in prominence and the focus was on discovery and expanding horizons, unearthing new material and revisiting old classics. It devolved pretty quickly and discussion became primarily about fans, specifically questioning motives and decrying others as posers whenever there is deviation for the Flair/Jumbo orthodoxy. Any real interesting discussion has struggled to overcome the fan-obsession hurdle.

[ohtani's jacket]

WWE is available on cable and satellite TV in Japan. It's covered in the magazines and you can find just as many WWE DVDs at the major DVD rental chains as you can domestic releases. And, of course, the WWE run houseshows. That in itself is not so different from most countries with the WWE being a global company available on cable and satellite in a large number of markets. Pay TV penetration is extremely low in Japan, but the WWE must do well enough to tour on a consistent basis. I used to know a guy who did freelance work changing the English used on WWE shows to something more easily translatable.

 

The speciality stores obviously have a lot more memorabilia and so forth.

 

I've met Japanese fans of WWE before. I used to know a guy who was a big Triple H fan and another guy who was a huge wrestling and MMA fan who was pretty clued up about US wrestling and loved the Attitude era stuff.

 

One comment I would to make is that there is nothing art house about mainstream lucha libre. Art house lucha, if there is such a thing, is the indie promotions and the YouTube handheld videos shot with someone's phone. The match Grimmas keeps mentioning as a MOTYC candidate is comparable to an art house film but a CMLL match shouldn't be.

[overbooked]

Wow. There you go again. I'm pretty sure you and you alone don't get to dictate the terms of engagement or scope of discussion here.

 

Edit: for JVK.

[Herodes]

It's easier for the orthodox narrative to try and position Lucha as a homogenous entity that is "niche"; it's easier to dismiss a niche.

[Jetlag]

The key question about coverage remains this one:

 

Three questions:

1. Does anyone have any idea of how much Mexican fans in Mexico care about or watch US wrestling? Same for Japanese fans in Japan.

2. Does it matter?

3. To what extent do you expect people of a country to be concerned primarily with themselves vs those who live abroad?

 

I actually didn't see those three. Let's give it a try:

 

1. I'd say Mexican fans care about US wrestling as much as US fans care about Mexican wrestling. I know US and foreign wrestlers are treated as completely interchangeable. I remember a german lucha fan who lives in Mexico once jokingly remarking that AAA is the only promotion in the world that can book Bryan Danielson, Jack Evans, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss (and a plethora of others) as the same person. CMLL will have japanese guys once in a while getting token title shots where it's about the CMLL guy vs. "the japanese" There is a tiny of subset of mexican fans who are interested in US indy stuff or japanese stuff, the same way european fans are. I remember a mexican fashion store once ran an indy show that had guys like Jimmy Jacobs, MCMG or Masada and it bombed completely. The comment from online fans was: "What kind of mexican wrestling fan wouldn't want to see a bunch of workers he's never heard of?" I also remember hearing that there are mexican fan of AAA/WWE that view CMLL as low brow/entertainment for low class people.

 

Another funny bit I remember: one time in CMLL there was a trios with japanese guys in it coming up. Alfonso Morales (or someone) finds and interviews an asian lady in the audience. He asks (in english) where she is from and she says she is korean. Alfonso then asks if she is in favor of the japanese wrestler. She explains Korea and Japan are two different things. Alfonso then explains to the camera (in spanish) that she is of course hoping the japanese wrestlers will win. The lady didn't look pleased...

 

2. I guess it matters if you are a promoter who wants to make money with US wrestlers in mexico. It doesn't matter to me at all.

[El-P]

I think it's fair to say that wrestling discussion on the internet peaked relatively early in the late 90s as DVDVR grew in prominence and the focus was on discovery and expanding horizons, unearthing new material and revisiting old classics. It devolved pretty quickly and discussion became primarily about fans, specifically questioning motives and decrying others as posers whenever there is deviation for the Flair/Jumbo orthodoxy. Any real interesting discussion has struggled to overcome the fan-obsession hurdle.

 

Wrong. Places like TOA, Spider-Twist (yes, I said it), the old Smarckchoice had plenty good and constructive discussions and were great places to discover new things during the first half of the 00's. DVDVR was just one spot. And clearly not the best in term of content and attitude if you ask me. I know, I've been there.

 

PWO has mostly been a great place for discussions, with people being overall a lot less excitable and way more open than before (ok, this thread not being a exemple of that).

 

Peaking in the late 90's ? Nah. Peaking by the first GWE poll ? Maybe. But there have been some great stuff not too long ago. So.

[Herodes]

Not saying there hasn't been great stuff since, but as an overall peak it's been a long time. Once people started obsessing over fans of Lucha, Memphis etc it inevitably sours discussion, since the accusation of disingenuousness is introduced. The canon is defended more religiously than ever.

[El-P]

Well, if you look at the GWE results, I can concede that point to you. I was the one launching the infamous "mainstream US wrestling comeback" talking point. In a way, yes, maybe these are reactionnary times even for pro-wrestling criticism.

 

I also remember hearing that there are mexican fan of AAA/WWE that view CMLL as low brow/entertainment for low class people.

 

Another funny bit I remember: one time in CMLL there was a trios with japanese guys in it coming up. Alfonso Morales (or someone) finds and interviews an asian lady in the audience. He asks (in english) where she is from and she says she is korean. Alfonso then asks if she is in favor of the japanese wrestler. She explains Korea and Japan are two different things. Alfonso then explains to the camera (in spanish) that she is of course hoping the japanese wrestlers will win. The lady didn't look pleased...

 

As far as your first point go, it's interesting because it would mean WWE is considered high-brow in the realm of pro-wrestling in Mexico. ANd the idea that WWE is considered high-brow on any level is kinda… well. But the fact there would be two different social classes following the two different companies is quite intriguing, especially when the "high-brow" one would be the more americanized one while the "low-brow" would be the most traditonnal, truly Mexicon one. Rings a bell, doesn't it ?

 

The anecdote about the Korean woman is classic. Racism. It's everywhere. The fact pro-wrestling never developped in Korea is interesting to me. Especially when a bunch of the guys who revolutionnized puroresu in the 80's were actually Korean. Now that K-pop is going for the Japanese market (right, Dan ?), you'd think maybe a version or puroresu could emerge in Korea and become a tool of "cultural" assault too.

[JerryvonKramer]

Wow. There you go again. I'm pretty sure you and you alone don't get to dictate the terms of engagement or scope of discussion here.

 

Edit: for JVK.

Well, have it at. What are you waiting for? Talk about cultural imperialism.

 

Not saying there hasn't been great stuff since, but as an overall peak it's been a long time. Once people started obsessing over fans of Lucha, Memphis etc it inevitably sours discussion, since the accusation of disingenuousness is introduced. The canon is defended more religiously than ever.

I really don't get this. My positions in this thread have been:

 

1. People who aren't into lucha have come to the conclusion that it sucks / is not for them (phrase it how you want), for whatever reason.

 

2. The reason it didn't have prominence historically, was probably a combination of Mil Mascaras wanting to keep himself special by keeping other luchadores off cards, and the LaBelle LA territory going under and then being bought out by Vince by 1983 severing the key link between US wrestling and lucha. I noted that Southern territories had Mexican workers who were not luchadores. And on the flipside Japanese promoters having strong ties with the NWA and post-WW2 Japanese heels being a thing in the US, kept the association between Japan and Wrestling precident in the minds of fans. All of these things rather than cultural imperialism seem to explain it to me.

 

3. We are better off talking about matches and challenging old narratives through the assessment of matches than in having these conversations about workers or styles. I think the board is at its best when it has done this. I do believe that these theoretical discussions get us to the point of being "utter wank".

 

You haven't really wanted to engage on these fronts. You've wanted to go over GWE, you've wanted to accuse me of being a conservative and anti-intellectual, you've wanted to talk about canon and whatever else. These have all been your harping points.

 

If people seriously believe I'm the problem, rather than you, it is time to remove myself from this community entirely.