Pro Rasslin

CarolinaFever

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Any pro wrestling fans here? Thought we could talk all things WWE, AEW, TNA, etc.

Summerslam is tonight and has a great card.

WWE Championship: Cody Rhodes (c) vs. Solo Sikoa
World Heavyweight Championship: Damian Priest (c) vs. GUNTHER
Women’s Championship: Bayley (c) vs. Nia Jax
Women’s World Championship: Liv Morgan (c) vs. Rhea Ripley
United States Championship: Logan Paul (c) vs. LA Knight
Intercontinental Championship: Sami Zayn (c) vs. Bron Breakker
CM Punk vs. Drew McIntyre (w/ special guest referee Seth Rollins)

The main event of Cody and Solo is an anything goes match, too. And this is after the Bloodline won the WWE tag titles last night. The big question is will Roman Reigns come back tonight?
 
Can you explain to me why, at this late hour, you are still a fan? I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm just curious. And, I will go ahead and put my biases on the table: I have never ever willingly watched a pro rasslin event and I have thought it was stupid since I was a little kid.

BUT, let me try to put that aside for now. Part of the issue for me was last century that it was always presented by its fans as a sport, as if it was real (whether they believed that or not). Nowadays, wrestling has decided that it's OK to be fake in public. It's OK for the various characters to be sort of winking at the camera as they flex and strut. It's OK that we understand the wrestlers-turned-actors didn't actually change careers. I'm on board with all of that.

So my question is: why isn't wrestling hopeless stale? You've been on these boards as long as I have (though I've probably had more user names). That makes you an adult now, and though maybe not a senior citizen, you're at least middle-aged. You've been following wrestling for three decades, I'm guessing. Isn't it boring by now? As much as they try to make it unpredictable, there's just no way to do that after all this time. I mean, punk bands are lucky if they can remain punk for more than three albums. Metal bands, for the most part, get five. It's really hard to stay fresh.

So is following wrestling in 2024 the same thing as going to a Metallica concert in 2024? And if your answer is "yep, and I like it," that's fine. I'm just trying to understand why. And if you do go to Metallica concerts, maybe you can explain that to me as well. It is similarly mystifying.
 
It has its up and downs. I was a fan in the 80s as a kid. I didn't watch at all between say 1993 and 1999. Then I started watching again. Watched for years and then kinda watched off and on for a few years again. It all depends on the storylines and how the talent is presented. The quality of the matches are important. The talent now is a lot more athletic than they were in the 80s. But if the storylines are stale it really doesn't matter. That's when those down periods happened for me and I wasn't as invested. It's just all a circus and can be really entertaining when it's done right.
 
And the consummate old white male I am could care less except to criticize the Roman Reigns bullshit!
roman reigns GIF
 
Don’t watch wrestling now, but did back in the ‘60’s. My grandfather loved it and I would watch it with him. On Saturday evening at 5 he was in front of his TV watching Big Jim Crockett announce the matches. The good guys included Johnny Weaver, George Becker and the Kentuckians. The bad guys included wrestlers like the Bolos, Rip Hawk and Manager Homer O’Dell . After he passed in 1967 I kinda lost interest. I remember Andre the Giant when he first came on the scene in the ‘70’s. I took my youngest brother to see him wrestle in Greensboro one time. Largest human being I have ever seen. Shaquille O’Neal would have looked like a little boy standing next to him.
 
For some reason, I appreciate that you have a thread on here and one on IC with like 100,000 views.
 
Ah, rasslin'. I used to watch it in kindergarten and early elementary school when it was real, with the likes of Rufus R "Freight Train" Jones, Haystack Calhoun, Nature Boy, Black Jack Mulligan, Nikita and Boris (?) Koloff, and The American Dream. That new stuff is so fake. :ROFLMAO: Seriously, I always thought it was like soap operas for rural white kids, with the good guys, bad guys, shifting alliances, cheating, etc. I don't see the appeal as an adult, but the old stuff does bring back memories of what seemed like simpler times.
 
Can you explain to me why, at this late hour, you are still a fan? I'm not trying to be a jerk. I'm just curious. And, I will go ahead and put my biases on the table: I have never ever willingly watched a pro rasslin event and I have thought it was stupid since I was a little kid.

BUT, let me try to put that aside for now. Part of the issue for me was last century that it was always presented by its fans as a sport, as if it was real (whether they believed that or not). Nowadays, wrestling has decided that it's OK to be fake in public. It's OK for the various characters to be sort of winking at the camera as they flex and strut. It's OK that we understand the wrestlers-turned-actors didn't actually change careers. I'm on board with all of that.

So my question is: why isn't wrestling hopeless stale? You've been on these boards as long as I have (though I've probably had more user names). That makes you an adult now, and though maybe not a senior citizen, you're at least middle-aged. You've been following wrestling for three decades, I'm guessing. Isn't it boring by now? As much as they try to make it unpredictable, there's just no way to do that after all this time. I mean, punk bands are lucky if they can remain punk for more than three albums. Metal bands, for the most part, get five. It's really hard to stay fresh.

So is following wrestling in 2024 the same thing as going to a Metallica concert in 2024? And if your answer is "yep, and I like it," that's fine. I'm just trying to understand why. And if you do go to Metallica concerts, maybe you can explain that to me as well. It is similarly mystifying.
Wait Super, what’s your beef with Metallica????
 
My grandmother got me into wrestlin watchin World Class on ESPN back in elementary school, then WCW on Sat. Nights. I've gone from watching the Monday Nigh Wars religiously to taking a long break to getting back in to it when NXT took off with their Takeover "PPV" which 99% of the time were so much better than the main roster events.

I keep up mainly online for weekly shows but try to watch the PLE events on Peacock. The product has gotten a lot better once Vince was kicked out for good.

And F Dirty Dom for Sat. Night.

Liv-Morgan-Rhea-Ripley-WWE-SummerSlam-2024-645x370.jpg
 
We went to see a wrestling event in the gym of the local recreation center one time when I was a kid in the 70's (had to have been under the umbrella of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling), the main thing I remember is that they brought out a black bear for the finale. I'm sure this was a tame bear, likely declawed and they had a muzzle on him, but when they walked him out of the small antechamber on the other side of the gym that was acting as a dressing room for the event, I've never heard such screaming and squealing and people falling over themselves fleeing. Good times...
 
My dorm (Everett) went to see them tape Rasslin' in Raleigh back around 1978 -- there were 8 or 9 of us -- there was a lot of drunken dorm elbow drops and TV room ruckus that fed that trip. It was a disaster in the main as a few guys, already topped off with multiple Milwaukee's Beasts, couldn't 'watch their mouths' and when one started in on Wahoo McDaniels' kids they threw us all out.
 
Family knew the promotor in Raleigh. I remember going to Dorton Arena as a kid in the early 60s. Even at that age I knew it was mostly fake. Never got into it.
 
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