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

[JerryvonKramer]

You should look at it another way:

 

Hardcore WWE fans look down on casual fans

Hardcore fans (whether indie or old-school NWA) look down on WWE fans

Puro fans look down on US fans

Lucha fans look down on all of the above

WOS / Euro fans look down on all of the above

 

This is the wrestling hierarchy of hipsterdom and cool. Joshi I don't even know.

 

How could the most hardcore of hardcores feel good about themselves if there wasn't Lucha.

 

This will be seen as a troll-y post but I think it is basically true.

 

I only ever got to level 3 in my fandom some people got to level 5.

 

At some point you just gotta be cool with it. Scott and Justin are never gonna get into Misawa and Kobashi, it's all cool we can talk about Hogan.

 

Don't see why you can't see it like that too.

[gordi]

 

I've been curious about this topic for a long time. Puro, by most fans, is considered the best wrestling. It's constantly praised above all other wrestling.

 

On the other hand, lucha is just ignored or mocked and gets praise only from really small circles.

 

GWE was a great example where puro dominated things and a luchador couldn't crack the top 10.

 

Does this come down to coverage from places like Dave or that lucha was developed differently, while puro was developed like American wrestling?

 

It's just very odd to me.

 

Perhaps a better way to approach this is how lucha fans can help to make lucha more appealing or accessible for new fans.

 

Other people have spelled out why Japanese wrestling has always been more appealing to hardcore fans than lucha; the one thing I would add is that when I first started branching out, and became interested in wrestling from other countries, much of the groundwork had already been done for Japan. You knew which tapes to get because of jdw's pimping posts, DVDVR, etc. It didn't matter whether it was All Japan, New Japan juniors or Joshi, all of the information was out there.

 

Lucha these days is a million times more accessible in terms of how much content is online. Ten years ago there was very little lucha uploaded onto the internet. Where it's lacking is the narrative detail. I tried really hard when I was doing the Lucha History Lessons stuff to find more information about lucha history by doing rudimentary searches in Spanish. People will never be able to follow lucha the way they follow 90s All Japan through commercial tapes and season sets, and the Misawa narrative and Kawada narrative, but if they know as much as they can about Sangre Chicana (for example), who he was and what he was doing in the early 80s, then I think it makes a difference because it creates greater excitement than the name being thrown out there. Before I ever ordered a tape, I remember getting excited about constantly "hearing" the name Kawada or Misawa. You heard it so much that you felt like you were missing out on something by not being part of the tape trading circle. The only luchador that was build up that much was Santo and even then it wasn't comparable to Liger.

 

This hasn't been a very articulate or well thought out post, but I think you have to give people a reason to be excited about lucha.

 

 

Certainly part of the reason that Japanese wrestling is so popular among older fans like me is due to the hard work of people like jdw and, say Mike Campbell (among many others) who posted tons of reviews online and did in-depth posts and write-ups that gave us such a clear idea of where to start and a way to figure out, "OK, if I like this one... what else might float my boat?"

 

"Where to start?" is often a crazy hard question with thing like wine, classical music, kung fu movies... anything where there is a lot of depth and richness to reward the effort of getting really into it also provides a dilemma of what the gateway should be and where to go next.When I was getting inot tape trading and so on, I think there was a lot more well-written guidance for Japanese wrestling than for Mexican or European wrestling, or even for territories, classics, and indies. At the time when I was watching just a ton of wresting a lot of it was from Japan, in large part because I had that guidance available.

 

Now, of course, on this very site we have awesome stuff like your "Lucha history lessons" posts and the "Top 500 of the 90s" "NWA TNA 2003" and so on and so on...

 

...but for me at least... I just don't watch a ton of wrestling any more. Local live shows and the odd match online or maybe pull out an old DVD from time to time.

 

Still.. I think that the jdws and Mike Campbells and so on have a lot to do with the "Why does puro get so muc love part of the original question here. As OJ puts it: Much of the groundwork had already been done

[ohtani's jacket]

You should look at it another way:

 

Hardcore WWE fans look down on casual fans

Hardcore fans (whether indie or old-school NWA) look down on WWE fans

Puro fans look down on US fans

Lucha fans look down on all of the above

WOS / Euro fans look down on all of the above

 

This is the wrestling hierarchy of hipsterdom and cool. Joshi I don't even know.

 

How could the most hardcore of hardcores feel good about themselves if there wasn't Lucha.

 

This will be seen as a troll-y post but I think it is basically true.

 

I only ever got to level 3 in my fandom some people got to level 5.

 

At some point you just gotta be cool with it. Scott and Justin are never gonna get into Misawa and Kobashi, it's all cool we can talk about Hogan.

 

Don't see why you can't see it like that too.

 

Is there such a thing as a hardcore WoS fan who looks down on lucha fans looking down on Japanese wrestling fans looking down on US wrestling fans?

[Matt D]

How many hardcore WoS fans even exist? It's a smaller number than lucha certainly. The WoS guys did worse than the lucha ones in GWE.

[JerryvonKramer]

 

You should look at it another way:

Hardcore WWE fans look down on casual fans

Hardcore fans (whether indie or old-school NWA) look down on WWE fans

Puro fans look down on US fans

Lucha fans look down on all of the above

WOS / Euro fans look down on all of the above

This is the wrestling hierarchy of hipsterdom and cool. Joshi I don't even know.

How could the most hardcore of hardcores feel good about themselves if there wasn't Lucha.

This will be seen as a troll-y post but I think it is basically true.

I only ever got to level 3 in my fandom some people got to level 5.

At some point you just gotta be cool with it. Scott and Justin are never gonna get into Misawa and Kobashi, it's all cool we can talk about Hogan.

Don't see why you can't see it like that too.

 

Is there such a thing as a hardcore WoS fan who looks down on lucha fans looking down on Japanese wrestling fans looking down on US wrestling fans?

Take a look in the mirror.

 

Although it's probably a very small Venn diagram.

[Grimmas]

I don't look down at fans. I don't see WoS or lucha fans looking down at other fans. I don't see puro fans looking down at American wrestling. I don't see this at all.

[Herodes]

Oh man you're talking about wrestling hipsterdom, the inevitable end to any discussion

[Matt D]

When I was 17, in my first few days of college in fall, 99, I was just on the internet following wrestling for a year or so, with no access to tapes, having JUST been back in wrestling watching for about a year. I met some people on my floor who were into wrestling, and I immediately wanted to establish my credibility with one other person. I did this by mentioning that I was a fan of Misawa and Kobashi, despite having seen none or at least very few matches with either of them. And then I totally botched the pronunciation of Misawa by mixing up letters because I'd never heard it, just seen it. At that point, I promise you I couldn't have named a single luchador I hadn't seen in WCW or ECW. I'm not particularly proud of any of that but we do what we do when we're young.

 

There is, or at least was, a primacy in fandom which had nothing to do with people's opinions of the style. I was talking to Loss about this yesterday. We're in an age where footage is far more freely available, where thought is not nearly as monolithic, and where everything is becoming more democratized. Streaming/blogging/twitter is sort of like the printing press in a lot of ways, as it pertains to wrestling fandom.

 

But I promise you that at age 17 in 1999, I knew what I was supposed to like and it wasn't CMLL-styled lucha.

[JerryvonKramer]

It was cool to like Kawada in 1999 whereas in 2014 it was cool to like El Dandy and beat AJPW = excessive talking points to death while saying something like "Taue was underrated ".

[Herodes]

Wrestling fans in general get very annoyed about "unconventional" thought and take personal affront when someone enjoys what they have defined as a "niche", inevitably taking the discussion to a passive aggressive critique of fandom, who is an isnt the right type of fan, who is or isn't a hipster etc. of course when the same people put together a music list for example, they are usually predominantly "niche" or achingly hipster.

[Matt D]

It was cool to like Kawada in 1999 whereas in 2014 it was cool to like El Dandy and beat AJPW = excessive talking points to death while saying something like "Taue was underrated ".

 

Where? Not at my college dorm if I was 17 in 2014, I'm pretty sure. Then I would have said Okada and Nakamura and probably messed up the pronunciation and called him Tahanashi.

[JerryvonKramer]

There's the mainstream cool and the alternative cool

[Herodes]

Ultimately PWO is no different to any wrestling discussion, when what's "cool" to like is being defined (by the special ones in the know) the expectation is that we need to conform to the established opinions (doesn't apply when making music lists)

[JerryvonKramer]

If you don't think certain narratives or workers don't get "trendy" even on PWO, you haven't been reading very hard.

[Matt D]

There's the mainstream cool and the alternative cool

 

You have your agenda, which comes off as hugely defensive. Steven has his, which i'd label more as aggressive. Both have a lot of resentment gurgling underneath.

 

In the midst of that, there's some very solid discussion in here both along historiography lines and a style lines. It's just muddied by the personal stuff.

 

You feel like people look down upon you for your lucha views, solely for "coolness" reasons or to be different or difficult or to derive identity from being contrary, despite you giving lucha as fair a chance as you've felt you've given everything else. Therefore, you're happy burning down everything and frankly just wish this lucha annoyance within your otherwise quite pleasant, conservative (but that's ok) wrestling life would go away.

 

Why the fuck can't we all just march in line up and down the square, right?

[JerryvonKramer]

I just don't see why Steven has a problem with it, just let everyone get on with it.

[Matt D]

One of my absolute favorite things about PWO is that almost any thread, with almost any agenda, driven by almost any truly personal thing, can still open up channels for interesting discussion. it's just not always pretty.

[Herodes]

"Trendy" as defined by who? Talking about wrestling fan coolness is the worst, but these debates always trend towards this end-point. For example you take people preferring taue to kobashi as a real personal slight, hence the passive aggressive labels. Lest we forget your post-GWE post script and annoyance that people weren't doing things "correctly". Be honest about what you're trying to say, was your music list honestly held or "trendy" because your implication ultimately boils down to wanting to control what's the right (ie your) opinion, something you used to sour the GWE process.

[JerryvonKramer]

When I hear the same talking points parroted from place to place that looks like a trend to me, which is the definition of "trendy".

[JerryvonKramer]

Ultimately all I'm trying to say is that this will always go on no matter what. Just roll with it.

 

Talk about the stuff you like, don't moan about why more people don't like it or talk about it.

[Herodes]

Learn to challenge the orthodoxy old chap

[JerryvonKramer]

PWO posters challenge "the orthodoxy" every time they write a review.

 

People who like Lucha will talk about Lucha more, people who like shoot style will talk about that more. It is what it is. What's the problem?

 

People will champion stuff they think is underrated, great.

 

I just think people should also be allowed to say "yeah that's not for me" and for everyone to be cool with it. This thread isn't cool with people not liking Lucha. It thinks it is some sort of problem, it isn't. Let it be.

[Herodes]

Part of that is not questioning people's motives for enjoying something e.g. "Trendy"

 

You're far orthodox in your opinions than you'd care to admit, not just highlighted here but during and after GWE.

[gordi]

I just think people should also be allowed to say "yeah that's not for me" and for everyone to be cool with it.

But you didn't say it's not for you. You said it sucks. There is a big difference between those two ways of expressing an opinion.

 

Pretty much everyone actually is cool with "it's not for me," and everyone should be.

 

Nobody should be cool with "it sucks" in reference to something that they care about.

[NintendoLogic]

In matters of taste, "it's not for me" and "it sucks" is a distinction without a difference.