Thought of the Day: The Other Kind Of Wrestling Fans
So as you may know, I was at the Smackdown house show two days ago. I saw something there that made me smile.A few rows behind me there was a teenager (I think. He seemed to be somewhere between 12 and 15 or so) in a red shirt. He was with a friend of his who clearly was new to wrestling as the guy in the red shirt was explaining everything to him, like who characters were and the stories that were going on. I started thinking about how fans like me and the so called “smart” fans really do have less fun. I watched the show with a notebook and with an analytical mind rather than just having a good time.
The guy behind me was cheering for all his heroes, booing the villains, and clearly was an expert on what was going on. He didn’t need to know that Barrett had no chance of winning, he didn’t need to know what spots were coming, he didn’t need to rate the match. He was having fun with what he was doing and had paid his money to see a show. There’s not a thing wrong with that and I felt kind of jealous actually.
One major problem is that wrestling ‘smarks’ seem to uniformely have no sense of humour whatsoever, or at least believe that throwaway humour has no place in wrestling. Case in Point – Fandango. You’re like ‘what’s the point in this guy’? The fact that I laugh every time he says his stupid name tells me exactly what the point in him is. For a laugh. Nothing deeper. One problem with wrestling is there is no off season – you need downtime to be able to appreciate properly. Otherwise it’s very easy to become bored and listless. Try not watching any wrestling for 2 months – you’ll mark out over Impact.
Agree, having the internet around to give us inside information doesn’t help us either. When I first started watching, there was no internet. So I was like this fan you speak of. Just sitting back and enjoying the show.
Just sitting back and watching is kind of what I do with TNA because I expect more from the WWE. Probably one of the reasons why I’ve been enjoying them more
Exactly and thats what made us Fans in the first place. Just watch & go to the Shows and have a good time. Who cares if the Matches are 5 star Classics or not just enjoy yourself. Thats what I do when attend a Show. Wrestling is suppose to be fun IMO.