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

[WingedEagle]

 

 

 

 

 

For me it means floaty dance wrestling in which nothing makes much sense and moves lack impact.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition.

 

 

Almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring. Not something to emulate for entertainment purposes.

I disagree, and judging by the fact UFC is worth more than the WWE and their public perceptions most people seem to as well.

 

 

That's got zero to do with the quality of the fights. They've done a better job creating stars in recent years than WWE, although even if WWE did a great job of it they'd never see the same TV money.

 

As long as people continue to pay and enjoy shows they pay insanely high ticket prices and PPV money for your statement that "almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring" simply isn't relevant.

 

 

So go hang at Sherdog. Most real fights are boring. Not all, but most. UFC has drawn in recent times because of Connor and Rousey. Their fights were interesting because of their personalities and the fact that the company did a great job selling them as characters. But if their fights were preshow matches rather than main events no one would talk about them. Fight quality is not what people have been buying, nor what the company has been selling.

[JerryvonKramer]

Some questions:

 

- Is it racist to not like tacos?

- Was Giant Baba a pawn of American cultural imperialism?

- When I played on my Nintendo as a kid, was I a victim of Japanese imperialism?

 

I mean, god, what is this?

 

I don't like floaty armdrags and like to see belly-to-back suplexes hit like death. I don't see a single reason to complicate that picture.

[El-P]

At least I learned that Mexico wasn't in the western world. Learnin' everyday about geopolitics thanks to good ol' pseudo intellectual pro-rasslin' debates.

 

Joshi ? Blah. Who cares ? Women and creepy fans. Yeah, creepy fans (like that Mick Santa guy). Because those good'ol' boys from the South during the glory days of Memphis were great people ya know, chanting against faggots and raising ol' Glory.

 

Hey, Trump is your new president, so I guess gotta turn everything into low-brow politic and moral arguments now.

Lucha is fine. It's surprisingly still the most purely "popular" form of wrestling and the most "hipster" as well, thanks to its aesthetics. Pro-wrestling is cheesy. Always will be. Hulk fucking Hogan, bro. But Lucha Libre is cool in a B-movie kinda way. There was even a lucha themed bar in Paris, despite having no lucha TV at all in the country. That's interesting to me. Probably why Lucha Underground works too, because it's so heavy on aesthetics.

[Herodes]

In a world of "SJWs" and "cucks" and whatever trending term du jour that is politicized and used to be dismissive, arguments are reduced to "is it racist to like tacos". I was hoping a healthy debate could be had away from the field of angry youtubers rallying against SJWs and the embrace of binary narratives that ultimately result in Trump and Brexit. The point is that one can't look beyond the context of Japanese pro wrestling emerging after World War 2 as a way of a nation trying to reassert its pride and national character. It may lead to discussion beyond "Lucha sucks" as an attempt to understand the mentality of fans drawn to one form which is derivative of US wrestling versus dismissal of styles that contain less familiar tropes and cross-pollination with American wrestling e.g. Lucha, shoot style. Lucha remains a niche amongst smart fans with token bones thrown at it to feign appreciation, perhaps some more granular thought can be given to understand why a generation raised on mainstream Us wrestling isn't able to do easily disregard a wrestling culture.

[GOTNW]

 

So go hang at Sherdog.

Very clever of you.

 

UFC has drawn in recent times because of Connor and Rousey. Their fights were interesting because of their personalities and the fact that the company did a great job selling them as characters. But if their fights were preshow matches rather than main events no one would talk about them. Fight quality is not what people have been buying, nor what the company has been selling.

Do people pay to see interviews and talk segments or the fights? Personalities and conflicts just make the fights more realistic. Two kids are more likely to fight because of a disagreement and exchange some insults before they do than they are to just start fighting for no reason.

[fxnj]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me it means floaty dance wrestling in which nothing makes much sense and moves lack impact.

When's the last time you were in an actual real life fight or a combat competition.

Almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring. Not something to emulate for entertainment purposes.

I disagree, and judging by the fact UFC is worth more than the WWE and their public perceptions most people seem to as well.

That's got zero to do with the quality of the fights. They've done a better job creating stars in recent years than WWE, although even if WWE did a great job of it they'd never see the same TV money.

As long as people continue to pay and enjoy shows they pay insanely high ticket prices and PPV money for your statement that "almost all real life fights or combat competitions are horribly boring" simply isn't relevant.

So go hang at Sherdog. Most real fights are boring. Not all, but most. UFC has drawn in recent times because of Connor and Rousey. Their fights were interesting because of their personalities and the fact that the company did a great job selling them as characters. But if their fights were preshow matches rather than main events no one would talk about them. Fight quality is not what people have been buying, nor what the company has been selling.

If entertainment didn't matter, you wouldn't see the UFC creating rules that privelage guys who focus on stand-up over wrestlers who try to grind out decisions, or for the company to hand out bonuses for knockouts and great fights. There's no disputing the role characters play in the company's popularity, but it's hard to downplay the company's efforts to make the product entertaining. If it was all characters, you'd see something like Floyd Mayweather situation in boxing, where 1 guy sells a ton of PPVs but no one sticks around to watch anybody else.

[Grimmas]

Wait, there are no suplexes or chops in lucha? Since when?

[Matt D]

There are too many god damn package piledrivers.

[JerryvonKramer]

Herodes, the most in-depth conversation you could hope to have on this is to look at styles and tastes.

 

I've noticed cross over points over the years. Not hard and fast rules but general trends:

 

Guys big on Crockett are likely also to be high on AJPW

Guys big on NJPW are likely also to be high on shoot style.

Guys big on Memphis are likely also to be high on Lucha.

 

Some guys like all six, some less.

 

But it's more to do with the style than anything else.

[Grimmas]

Herodes, the most in-depth conversation you could hope to have on this is to look at styles and tastes.

 

I've noticed cross over points over the years. Not hard and fast rules but general trends:

 

Guys big on Crockett are likely also to be high on AJPW

Guys big on NJPW are likely also to be high on shoot style.

Guys big on Memphis are likely also to be high on Lucha.

 

Some guys like all six, some less.

 

But it's more to do with the style than anything else.

The difference being is people who like Memphis and Lucha did not think all the other styles suck, while people who like the other 4 think lucha and sometimes Memphis suck. Why is that? That is why I am trying to figure out.

[Matt D]

If you want to cede Parv the point and eschew the cultural issues (and I'm not convinced that's the way to go yet), then the next step would be categorizing elements of each style.

[fxnj]

How many people who like Memphis and lucha pimp Dragon Gate and Davey Richards matches?

[Grimmas]

How many people who like Memphis and lucha pimp Dragon Gate and Davey Richards matches?

Are you comparing a whole super long 83 year history of super diverse wrestling to one wrestler and one company?

[Matt D]

The CMLL vs AAA (or spotty lucha Indy matches) distinction probably matters there.

[concrete1992]

I rather enjoy how there are at least two more interesting and less "Grrrr on the internet" topics than the threads title.

 

Does becoming a fan in this UFC world color things?

 

Why is it so easy for us to dismiss certain styles of wrestling? I know "It boils down to personal tastes" but how are we developing these tastes to where we create walls to appreciate other styles? Probably anecdotal but on the whole I think someone earlier on in their fandom has a better chance of appreciating different spheres of wrestling. There has yet to be an established view of what wrestling is or can be at that point. I mean, that's probably a thing that can be applied more broadly but I guess I'm focusing on the graps.

[Grimmas]

Weird, watching this week's lucha and the first trios match I watched included a number of chops and the first fall ended with a vicious head dropping suplex.

[Grimmas]

Parv, how can you possibly believe a luchador legend Negro Casas doesn't wrestle like a luchador? Instead of thinking such a ridiculous thing, maybe you should re-evaluate what you think lucha libre is.

[JerryvonKramer]

He has crossover appeal beyond his genre.

 

I mean I have no great love for NJ juniors but Liger transcends that genre.

 

Not a hard thing to say.

[El-P]

Negro Casas really didn't showcase very much crossover appeal when he showed up in New Japan to me. He mostly looked like a fish out of water much like Barry Windham in All Japan a few years before, at a time he was arguably the best active US wrestler (yeah better than Flair).

 

Those luchadors from the late 70's showing up against Fujinami on the other hand, they just blended easily and brought tons to the style that would become the "junior" style of NJ, which would evolve into the lucharesu, US cruiserweights, and X-div workers of the world.

 

So, there.

 

Lucha Libre may be my favourite pro-wrestling I don't actually like watching very much.

[goc]

For me personally the argument that lucha feels more "foreign" couldn't be more wrong. It shares a lot of the same aspects of American wrestling that I like and are pretty much necessary for my enjoyment of wrestling:

 

1. A clearly differentiated line between the good guys and the bad guys

2. Matches with structures based around the bad guys getting heat and the good guys making comebacks

3. Bad guys who cheat and go out of their way to let you know they are, in fact, the bad guys

4. Loud, colorful characters (I'm not talking about just costumes here, guys like El Satanico and Mocho Cota bring a lot of personality to their matches)

5. Lots of selling

 

To me Japanese wrestling has always felt far more "foreign" from American wrestling than lucha because there is often not a clear divide between faces and heels, there isn't that structure of heat/comeback, there are a lot less colorful characters & personalities and the selling is far more subdued.

[Cap]

It is unfortunate that some of the more culturally oriented analyses of the question have gotten bogged down in politically potent language. I too sort of roll my eyes at the notion that we are dealing with imperialism here, but I think there is undoubtedly something that extends beyond wrestling proper that shapes how puro developed vs how lucha developed and how people consume them (yes, I know its imperialist language). The storytelling, the execution, the development of characters, the in ring style… all of that is unquestionably molded and shaped by culture dialectically engaged with the product. Sure there are cross cultural influences and some of that might not be completely separate from issues of power and influence. However, it is always tricky frame these things in terms of imperialism and (potentially) racism and so on because ultimately… its wrestling. It is a niche entertainment that certainly isn’t void of politics, but those conversations have such heavy connotations, often and unjustly the connotation of evil political intentions. I just don’t think that shirt fits wrestling well.

 

Ultimately, the old post GWE stuff by Dylan on the topic was – I thought – compelling and somewhat thought provoking, but I probably fall short of buying into the political weight of imperialism being a way to explain what we saw from the list or a way to answer the question here. I am not sure it can be conflated to imperialism, but I am also not sure it can be reduced to taste. Taste comes from somewhere. It isn’t arbitrary. We are also dealing with collectives. The question – at least on my reading – isn’t why does one person like one style more than another. It is why do these patterns exist? I agree 100% that taste is pretty much primary here, but does it really explain why puro seems favored more widely than lucha.

 

To me – and this is honestly more a different frame/orientation than a drastically different argument – it is more about narratives and storytelling and our ability (or lack there of) to grapple with storytelling forms that are radically different than our own. That – of course - is not unrelated to imperialism, globalization, identity politics, and so on; it just doesn’t frame wrestling in the with the same political weight. For some, lucha doesn’t feel that different (clearly from this thread), but for me it did at first.

 

I have only relatively recently got into lucha, maybe the last year or so and it took me a minute. I honestly had to start with high-end stuff and work backwards in a way. The logic of the match just didn’t make sense to me at first. The characters and their personalities were evident, but I struggled to figure out why matches were progressing like they were and I did struggle to get into the grace and cooperation of the matches. I also wanted more high impact moves. Then I just went all in on high end lucha and fell in love with it. It took me getting into one-on-one lucha brawls before I could really understand what I was seeing in other lucha matches. Lucha brawls were the right balance of violence and drama to help me get into the style more broadly. After understanding lucha brawls better and watching more high end ones I slowly but surely really came to like and appreciate the way drama is built in lucha more generally. Some of the tropes that were lost on me earlier made sense and the strengths of lucha started to become even more pronounced.

 

Again…that took time. I imagine I am not the only one who had to struggle through it a bit before they got it. On the other hand it looks like there are lots of people who have given it a real try and just don’t dig it. We literally have more wrestling available to us right now than we could ever tire of, so there are probably a lot of people uninterested in struggling through a genre that may require upfront investment or that they may not intuitively get.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

Herodes, the most in-depth conversation you could hope to have on this is to look at styles and tastes.

I've noticed cross over points over the years. Not hard and fast rules but general trends:

Guys big on Crockett are likely also to be high on AJPW

Guys big on NJPW are likely also to be high on shoot style.

Guys big on Memphis are likely also to be high on Lucha.

Some guys like all six, some less.

But it's more to do with the style than anything else.

 

The difference being is people who like Memphis and Lucha did not think all the other styles suck, while people who like the other 4 think lucha and sometimes Memphis suck. Why is that? That is why I am trying to figure out.

The idea that Crockett or AJPW don't get push back from fans of the other four is pretty laughable.

[gordi]

I can see how, for a lot of people, lucha might fall under a kind of general "This is gonna take some effort to get into" umbrella. Stuff like the "Captains fall" the "no tags needed" exception, the sudden and compete shifts in momentum, the three-falls structure and so on... it's just different enough from what a lot of folks are used to.

 

All kinds of stuff falls under that "This is gonna take some effort to get into" umbrella. A lot of great stuff, a lot of not so great stuff. Ozu movies, Ghibli movies, Zappa, Mingus, Lovecraft, Jorge Luis Borges, Charles Ives, Hildegard of Bingen, Dada, Bauhaus, Bunraku, Corridos, Vepřové s knedlíky, Takoyaki...

 

Sometimes the effort gets rewarded. Sometimes you end up disappointed.

 

Faced with a "This is gonna take some effort to get into" type situation, there are three basic paths that can be taken, I think:

 

1) Make the effort. Might be rewarded, might not. Say it is rewarded. You then have the choice of either A - sharing what you found in a spirit of joy, or B - looking down your nose at people who haven't made the effort yet so that you can feel superior.

 

2) Put it on the back burner. Think, "I'll get to it when I have time, later on." Sometimes: A - You follow through, sometimes... B - Hey, who has that much time?

 

3) Just go, "That stuff sucks," so that you don't have to feel bad for not getting it.

 

I think we've got representatives of all of the above types on this thread, which is pretty cool.

 

I think the best discussion is between 1A and 2A types, in most cases.

 

I think most people on these boards fall into type 1A and 2A w/r/t Pro Wrestling in all it's many forms.

 

w/r/t lucha, I'm 1A in danger of becoming 1B just because I really am busy with kids and work and stuff.

[El-P]

1A - 2B

 

Check mate.

 

Lucha Underground won.

[soup23]

For me personally the argument that lucha feels more "foreign" couldn't be more wrong. It shares a lot of the same aspects of American wrestling that I like and are pretty much necessary for my enjoyment of wrestling:

 

1. A clearly differentiated line between the good guys and the bad guys

2. Matches with structures based around the bad guys getting heat and the good guys making comebacks

3. Bad guys who cheat and go out of their way to let you know they are, in fact, the bad guys

4. Loud, colorful characters (I'm not talking about just costumes here, guys like El Satanico and Mocho Cota bring a lot of personality to their matches)

5. Lots of selling

 

To me Japanese wrestling has always felt far more "foreign" from American wrestling than lucha because there is often not a clear divide between faces and heels, there isn't that structure of heat/comeback, there are a lot less colorful characters & personalities and the selling is far more subdued.

So you are a big fan of Dragon Gate then? Numbers 1-4 are unequivocally prominent in Dragon Gate even among smart fans in as much that the most notorious English speaking Dragon Gate fan in Jae doesn't legitimately like the lead hero currently in Shingo.