Wrestling

padraig (u.s.) · Jul 30, 2019

yyaldrin said:
i guess this is extremely anglo-saxon? literally know nobody watching wrestling

not only, no

the 3 main pro wrestling strongholds are, for whatever reasons, the U.S., Japan, and Mexico

it's if anything bigger (per capita) in Japan, where tho still "fake" pro wrestling is treated closer to a real combat sport, and there's more crossover

and Mexico has its own well established wrestling tradition, lucha libre

why all this is, I couldn't tell you

padraig (u.s.) · Jul 30, 2019

as far as international fandom outside those three countries, no idea

but I'm pretty sure it's not Anglo-Saxon in any particular way

also, in terms of origins, the strongholds of "real" wrestling (i.e. Greco-Roman, freestyle, etc) are afaik the U.S. and parts of the former Soviet bloc

and then many, many countries - India, Mongolia, etc - have their own wrestling traditions

padraig (u.s.) · Jul 30, 2019

what you could definitely say - tautologically, albeit truly - is that American pro wrestling is very particular to the United States

and so being a fan of that is as a person from somewhere else is akin to being, in a way, a fan of American action movies or what have you

IdleRich · Jul 30, 2019

There is a radio station here in Lisbon which is in the back of one of what used to be a Mexican owned shop or butchers or something. The shelves have all these Mexican wrestling masks on them.

forclosure · Aug 2, 2019

Harley Race died yesterday, tough old bastard

malelesbian · Jun 30, 2023

Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero exemplify the brotherly love emblematic of male lesbianism.

Who else? Awesome Kong vs Gail Kim is feminine culture 101.

My other goal is to get Dusty Rhodes over as an icon of democratic socialism.

shakahislop · Jun 30, 2023

got to see a live recording of Raw recently. there's still a lot i like about the form. if you think music is retromanic, you should see what wrestling is like these days. there's a constant harking back to the glory years of twenty years ago, a kind of hero worship of the stars of the past. but what is presented at the current moment is also very much stuck in that era. loads of nu-metal intro music, tag teams of black dudes with all kinds of signifiers that they represent 'the street', a whole structure of feeling being evoked.

it's the most frozen in aspic thing i've seen, and interesting that it's specifically the early 00s that its got stuck in. but then WWE is so closely tied to its audience, which is a working class one, it really evolves to meet that set of preferences.

Leo · Jun 30, 2023

Leo said:
saw chief jay strongbow when I was a kid!

have a friend who used to really be into it, we went to a couple of matches at Madison sq garden back in the heyday of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jake the snake, the Hardys, D-Generation, Shawn michaels, Kurt angle, booker t., Kane, the rock, undertaker, triple h, big show, etc. (actually can't believe some of those guys are still active).

it was a blast.

Leo said:
it's also interesting to see how they're always looking to introduce characters who reflect different aspects of culture, in order to appeal to those demographic groups. every personality stereotype and ethnic group eventually has a wrestler to represent them, sometimes proudly (Rey mysterio) but oftentimes in an over-the-top joking manner (more white trash hillbilly brother tag teams than I can name).

WashYourHands · Jun 30, 2023

version · Jun 30, 2023

shakahislop said:
there's a constant harking back to the glory years of twenty years ago, a kind of hero worship of the stars of the past.

They always seem to get The Rock to come back just to walk out and get on the mic and that gets more of a response than any of the current lot actually wrestling.

malelesbian · Jun 30, 2023

It's a bit overlong, but here's a great summary of the best storyline in wrestling right now.

The Rock's nephew is decent as long as he has Paul Heyman.

IdleRich · Jul 6, 2023

pattycakes_ said:
Sorry to hear that, IdleRich.

You just reminded me of a crazy night. I was at a really weird party in Berlin where you went through a course of rooms with twin peaks and roman fertility ritual themes. At the end of the course you came to a big banquet room with some posh nosh and champers and after that there was a big hall with a circular curtain. After a short gig played by this cosmic old lady with a viking helmet from the hippy days in SF, the curtain was drawn and a big fighting ring was revealed. Well wouldn't you know it, the cream of the UK wrestling scene climbs up on the ropes and starts bashing the shit out of each other. I got bored fast and saw the door to the green room where the wrestlers had come from. Ended up chatting with a girl and nicking a bottle of bubbly and taking it back to the green room only to find there was a small samba gig going on up there, I guess just for the performers? After that cleared out, me and my new friend well on our way, the wrestlers come in after their match and we're doing an acapella freestyle duet on the small PA. Out of the blue I hear my name being called and one of the wrestlers takes off her mask. Oh shit, it's an ex of mine from back in London! She'd always wanted to be an actress, serious like. Went to schools and all sorts. Furthest she got was xmas panto. Somehow she'd landed in wrestling and a year or two ago I saw she'd won some big belt. She looked like she was really enjoying it. Good on her I guess?

Amazing story.

The other day there was a film on telly with Nick Frost about a family of crappy UK wrestlers and one of them got big and went to the US and became a big star. It had The Rock in it and Vince Vaughan. I googled it and it turned out to be a true story about this woman called Paige or something

Saraya Bevis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The story told about this woman and her brother and a load of other people going through this selection process and being whittled down - she got through to a short list and he didn't and that was a big disappointment for him and the source of a huge amount of family tension. Then she went to the US and went through all this extremely gruellilng training, always on the eddge of being kicked out. But basically she somehow - after a load of twists and turns - managed to hang on by the skin of her teeth until finally she was offered a chance to come in to Wrestlemania or whatever and fight the champion as a total outsider - a fight which she won and then becacmea mega-star and so on.

The thing that was very strange to me was the way that it went through all the training and showed how hard it was to be the one who was selected out of a load of crazily dedicated yet also (apparently) glamorous people. And this was interesting in a way I guess. What it didn't address, and what I didn't understand and still don't, is, why would someone spend so much effort and work so hard to become a fake sports star? Also, and I understand why they can't just explain this I suppose, but it totally avoided the issue of how they decided who was gonna win the "ifghts" and become champion etc

It just seemed so strange that this woman eventually got picked to be a WWE (or whatever they are called) star, and then they decided that her first "fight" would be an irregular one-off thing in which the champion decided bizarrely to put up her belt and then Paige won it and from then on she was a star. But I just don't get it - why did they suddenly drop all that in her lap? What was the thinking behind that? She didn't have that much character that I could see. So it ended up being a strange film about a weird environment which seems to invovle an awful lot of physical effort to enter and which was itself this inexplicable twilight world in-between sport and acting and something else.

shakahislop · Jul 6, 2023

IdleRich said:
Amazing story.

The other day there was a film on telly with Nick Frost about a family of crappy UK wrestlers and one of them got big and went to the US and became a big star. It had The Rock in it and Vince Vaughan. I googled it and it turned out to be a true story about this woman called Paige or something

Saraya Bevis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The story told about this woman and her brother and a load of other people going through this selection process and being whittled down - she got through to a short list and he didn't and that was a big disappointment for him and the source of a huge amount of family tension. Then she went to the US and went through all this extremely gruellilng training, always on the eddge of being kicked out. But basically she somehow - after a load of twists and turns - managed to hang on by the skin of her teeth until finally she was offered a chance to come in to Wrestlemania or whatever and fight the champion as a total outsider - a fight which she won and then becacmea mega-star and so on.

The thing that was very strange to me was the way that it went through all the training and showed how hard it was to be the one who was selected out of a load of crazily dedicated yet also (apparently) glamorous people. And this was interesting in a way I guess. What it didn't address, and what I didn't understand and still don't, is, why would someone spend so much effort and work so hard to become a fake sports star? Also, and I understand why they can't just explain this I suppose, but it totally avoided the issue of how they decided who was gonna win the "ifghts" and become champion etc

It just seemed so strange that this woman eventually got picked to be a WWE (or whatever they are called) star, and then they decided that her first "fight" would be an irregular one-off thing in which the champion decided bizarrely to put up her belt and then Paige won it and from then on she was a star. But I just don't get it - why did they suddenly drop all that in her lap? What was the thinking behind that? She didn't have that much character that I could see. So it ended up being a strange film about a weird environment which seems to invovle an awful lot of physical effort to enter and which was itself this inexplicable twilight world in-between sport and acting and something else.

I used to be really into WWE a long time ago. Wrestling is an artform (or whatever) with an exceptionally weird structure. There are some small wrestling companies, and a whole world of Japanese wrestling as well I suppose, but really there's only one company in the whole world that has any kind of big money in it, which is WWE. Every other promotion is extremely marginal in comparison. There's a lot of money in WWE and the rewards if you make it as a wrestler are huge, it's real fame and fortune. WWE has a financial / shareholder structure where 81% of voting rights are held by one person, Vince McMahon, who is by all accounts very active in the day to day management of what happens in the ring. That includes who wins the fights, who gets hired, and who gets a 'push', ie, which wrestlers they let win a lot of matches, get a lot of screen time, in a bid to make them a superstar beloved or hated by the fans (ie the wrestler you're talking about suddenly winning the belt in her first match).

There's all kinds of stories in WWE about how shitty and nefarious it is and how those kinds of decisions get made. It's an extremely consolidated power structure where one company and to some extent one dude holds the keys to the career of every wrestler. It's in the US so probably very little government regulation of how wrestling should be run. It's also a very demanding way to live. Those guys are on the road pretty much non-stop, it's city after city to do shows, week after week. On top of that you have the physical demands and damage of being a wrestler and taking those bumps, plus the extreme focus on maintaining these absolutely massive bodies, what you look like, plus the pressure of being on TV every week, and the fact that whether or not you're any good at it is totally subjective, and that you're subject to these fairly arbitrary judgements by a management structure that you have no control over.

The other interesting thing about it is that a lot of these guys who go into it are drawn from the WWE audience, which is (to massively generalise) mostly American and mostly poor, and if you make it in WWE you become a millionaire. There's a lot of prestige in working for WWE as well. And essentially no major competitor that you could jump to. Really lopsided power dynamics at play.

Leo · Jul 6, 2023

it is funny to watch matches of some of the other wrestling organization, which take place in small halls compared to arenas used by WWE, with low-budget versions of the characters and production values. You get these guys in hokey outfits and bad makeup, but in a way it's like a punk rock version of wrestling compared the the "major label" WWE. more low-fi, and probably more dangerous.

actually, punk rock version is the wrong analogy. It's more akin to the (former, probably) local LA glam metal scene where bands essentially ape the look and style of metal stereotypes: low-budget nth-generation homemade versions of Guns'n Roses, Poison, Kiss, etc.

IdleRich · Jul 6, 2023

shakahislop said:
I used to be really into WWE a long time ago. Wrestling is an artform (or whatever) with an exceptionally weird structure. There are some small wrestling companies, and a whole world of Japanese wrestling as well I suppose, but really there's only one company in the whole world that has any kind of big money in it, which is WWE. Every other promotion is extremely marginal in comparison. There's a lot of money in WWE and the rewards if you make it as a wrestler are huge, it's real fame and fortune. WWE has a financial / shareholder structure where 81% of voting rights are held by one person, Vince McMahon, who is by all accounts very active in the day to day management of what happens in the ring. That includes who wins the fights, who gets hired, and who gets a 'push', ie, which wrestlers they let win a lot of matches, get a lot of screen time, in a bid to make them a superstar beloved or hated by the fans (ie the wrestler you're talking about suddenly winning the belt in her first match).

There's all kinds of stories in WWE about how shitty and nefarious it is and how those kinds of decisions get made. It's an extremely consolidated power structure where one company and to some extent one dude holds the keys to the career of every wrestler. It's in the US so probably very little government regulation of how wrestling should be run. It's also a very demanding way to live. Those guys are on the road pretty much non-stop, it's city after city to do shows, week after week. On top of that you have the physical demands and damage of being a wrestler and taking those bumps, plus the extreme focus on maintaining these absolutely massive bodies, what you look like, plus the pressure of being on TV every week, and the fact that whether or not you're any good at it is totally subjective, and that you're subject to these fairly arbitrary judgements by a management structure that you have no control over.

The other interesting thing about it is that a lot of these guys who go into it are drawn from the WWE audience, which is (to massively generalise) mostly American and mostly poor, and if you make it in WWE you become a millionaire. There's a lot of prestige in working for WWE as well. And essentially no major competitor that you could jump to. Really lopsided power dynamics at play.

Yes this sort of comes across in the film without naming names. Paige is disappointed that her brother is cut but Vince Vaughn says he would have been a journeynan expected to injure himself to make someone elsw a star - later it's implied that he himself did that for The Rock - who refers to him as Sex Tape cos he makes people famous.

shakahislop · Jul 6, 2023

Leo said:
it is funny to watch matches of some of the other wrestling organization, which take place in small halls compared to arenas used by WWE, with low-budget versions of the characters and production values. You get these guys in hokey outfits and bad makeup, but in a way it's like a punk rock version of wrestling compared the the "major label" WWE. more low-fi, and probably more dangerous.

actually, punk rock version is the wrong analogy. It's more akin to the (former, probably) local LA glam metal scene where bands essentially ape the look and style of metal stereotypes: low-budget nth-generation homemade versions of Guns'n Roses, Poison, Kiss, etc.

yeah right. there's another analogy as well, which is in the early 00s, at the same time as a similar thing was happening in US punk as well actually, the mainstream (WWF) got a new lease of life through changing tack and incorporating a lot of the style and attitude of one an upstart smaller company (ECW). including some of the wrestlers. ECW was all about being extreme, which involved a lot more dangerous stunts, people falling off ladders, people smashing each other in the face with chairs, throwing each other through tables, barbed wire, and blood. WWE took all of that and replaced a lot of its waddling old beefcakes with skinnier dudes throwing themselves about, and everyone loved it. and ECW died in the end. the US punk analogy is The Offspring and the way that cali-punk thing was bought into the major label mainstream MTV thing, as I think @padraig (u.s.) has schooled me on before.

shakahislop · Jul 6, 2023

i can remember watching that era of wrestling when i was about 12. suddenly it was everywhere. i remember watching my first match. i'd never seen anything like it before. there are these step-changes in a form that produce the genuinely new. but at a guess it was the combination of all kinds of forces merging. copying for sure. but also 2000-ish was really a time when (it seems to me) that a lot of traditional barriers of demure taste were obliterated. beyond the latent sexuality of wrestling itself, there was a lot of half naked sexy girls that wouldn't have been possible in that kind of form in 1990 i think. less and less distaste for violence on TV as well. and metal as the sound of intensity and masculinity respectively fully emerging into mass culture. would have been interesting to see where visual culture went if the internet hadn't been created i think.

Leo · Jul 6, 2023

I haven't paid attention in years, did any wrestlers embrace heavy bro-step for intro music? it was always metal or gangsta rap when I watched.

Leo · Jul 6, 2023

All I can say is good thing all these wrestlers never took steroids.

shakahislop · Jul 6, 2023

Leo said:
I haven't paid attention in years, did any wrestlers embrace heavy bro-step for intro music? it was always metal or gangsta rap when I watched.

i haven't watched much for years. because i am an adult. when i saw Raw at Barclays recently it was really stuck in the past, it was frozen, it was still metal and rap. the EDM thing passed it by. which is interesting actually because in the US at least that's definitely part of the macho-intensity continuum, music of aggression and frustration

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