Thought of the Day: Appreciating vs. Liking
This is one of those things that wrestling fans will never seem to understand but I’ll keep trying to explain it.
Something that fans don’t seem to understand is you can appreciate something while not caring about it. Yesterday it was announced that New Japan will continue to have its TV show airing on AXS TV. I saw the headline about it and didn’t react. Why didn’t I react? Because I don’t care about New Japan. I’m well aware and completely agree with the fact that it’s some of if not the best in ring action in the world today, but I don’t have a connection to it. I’ll watch a New Japan show a year or two at most, but I have no desire to watch any more than that.
Now, does that mean I don’t know or get wrestling? I certainly wouldn’t think so. All it means is that I don’t care about New Japan. To put it into mainstream sports terms, at the moment, the St. Louis Cardinals are one of if not the best teams in Major League Baseball. However, I don’t care about that team. Instead, I care about the Cleveland Indians, who really aren’t that good. However, I care about the Indians because they’re my team.
I care about WWE more than New Japan because I’ve watched WWE since before I can remember. They’re my team. I’m well aware that New Japan does things better than WWE, but that doesn’t mean I want to watch them all the time. I’ll watch them occasionally if I’m in the mood to, but it’s not like WWE where I want to see every thing they do. Me not wanting to watch New Japan doesn’t mean I don’t understand or love wrestling. It means I have different taste than other fans and that’s ok.
You really come off as a WWE fanboy in this article.
Well that could be because I’ve been a WWE fan for going on 28 years.
If by some marvel NJPW were in a slot where you could easily watch it and not have to worry about clashes (like I don’t know, Tuesdays or something) while also grabbing themselves a proper English commentary team (or even subtitles) would you start reviewing them? I mean you did refuse to follow ROH for ages and now I dare say you’re getting a little into it 😛
I like New Japan’s in ring stuff better than ROH. There are two issues with keeping me from doing it:
1. The shows are too long. I can do Raw or Smackdown because they’re once a week and not that long. New Japan seems to have a pay per view length show every few days. I have other shows to do and those eat up too much time.
2. I need a day off every now and then just to recharge a bit. Tuesday is that day, though I wind up doing the week’s Nitro and column if I have time so maybe I need to rethink my schedule.
This seems to be more of an internet issue than wrestling fan issue, because I’ve seen this crop up over MANY topics. Video games(you’re not a PC gamer? GET OUT OF HERE, YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO APPRECIATE GAMES), movies(you prefer Marvel movies to DC? Man you have horrible taste), and don’t even get started on politics, religion and gender roles on the internet.
The internet seems to be in a very “you’re either with us or against us, there is no middle ground” for years now, and the wrestling community is only one part of it.