Post by Deleted on Dec 12, 2010 22:31:09 GMT -5
In this column by Len Archibald, a lot is discussed about the current state of professional wrestling, and how some of the fanbase, mainly the Internet Wrestling Community, has responded to it. Specifically, in the challenge section, he states:" The personal issue I have with the most vocal detractors from the IWC is the "big-talk" attitude. A lot around here like to moan and bitch about Michael Cole, "Super-Cena" and the lack of focus on long-term storytelling. If I got a dollar for every "fan" that claimed they were done with wrestling, I wouldn't be writing this article, because I would be with Santino "making it rain." The fact is that to a lot of those fans, professional wrestling is already dead, so it has moved on without them and they're now pissed because it is enjoying success under a different banner of rules and with a different set of fans. Sure, professional wrestling today may not give the same highs one remembers as a youngster, but we haven't been exactly kind to professional wrestling over the past few years, either. Every show is the "Worst. Show. Ever." Every newcomer is "too green" or is "shoved down [your] throat". Wrestling is either filled with drug-addled rejects, plastic dime-a-dozen whores or company yes-men. We don't like smaller guys because they're all "vanilla spot-monkeys who can't draw a dime". We don't like all the muscle-bound steroid rejects because they can't work for five minutes without blowing up.</i>
There's a lot to be said here, but this was the section of the column that really got my attention. It seems to be the norm on the internet for anything, not just wrestling, to feel smart by absolutely trashing any and everything that has ever existed and will exist, whether it be movies, TV shows, wrestling, politicians, Roy Halladay throwing a no-hitter, you name it. If you ever want a true glimpse into the bane of humanity, pull up the first video you find on YouTube of anything. Message boards and comment sections have replaced the proverbial bathroom walls of society. It could be a video of a kitten playing in a meadow, and you'll find twenty-seven people who verbally castrate not only the cat, but the person who posted it for being a complete failure as a human being, thus suggesting they should end their lives forcefully with a hatchet to the face... although to be fair, most of the words in that past sentence would've been misspelled. After all, on the internet, if you spell correctly and use punctuation, you're a "fag".
I'm not saying that I'm exempt from this either. Once upon a time, I discovered independent wrestling, and for a period of time, found it necessary to tear everything apart because the stuff I was seeing live in front of 150 people was "better". Not that I wasn't seeing great wrestling during that time, but looking back on it, I now find that it was just a different experience. Being there live with personal interaction, seeing the moves up close, having the wrestlers respond to you and getting to meet them, it seemed so much more fun than a sea of 20,000 people and wrestlers who rarely played to them.
I am however not going to defend the period of time that had me rarely viewing the product, 2006-08 or so. A lot of people fell out of love with wrestling with the Chris Benoit tragedy, and while some of us have learned to separate the performer from the man and his actions, it drove many away, and I do not fault them for that. It was painful for a lot of fans, especially the ones who greatly admired one of the best technical performers the business has ever seen.
But something else happened around 2008 for me that started to change my view on professional wrestling as a whole. I began training for professional wrestling.
The first time I went out to a tryout for professional wrestling, let's just say my back was so black and yellow it could've been confused for a Pittsburgh jersey. To the point in time of my first tryout, I had been conditioning for maybe a month, and weighed an imposing 150 pounds soaking wet. I had no meat to absorb the blows, no muscle to lift people, and the complete wrong attitude about it. I didn't learn the rules of the road, that you don't talk about the people you've met and know, because nobody cares and it makes you look like a mark. I lasted two days during my first run in training, because after the six hour tryout, the second day, I had absolutely nothing left. While I am proud I survived the tryout in the physical condition I was in, I was nowhere near ready.
A year later, I went out for it again. I was still very skinny, but I had started conditioning. The muscle mass was slowly beginning to grow, and I went in with the right attitude this time. I was associated with a wrestling organization that allowed trainees to participate in some manner of the show, and even newbies got placed in multi-man matches and battle royals.
The sobering experience of my first live show was a painful one. Two minutes into the match, a veteran performer much larger than me threw my skinny ass over the top rope, landing me hip-first on the gym floor. My entire side was bruised up, and I never wanted to go back to wrestling again. However this time my drive was there, and I kept going back.
After being placed in a stable called the Bloodline and doing some run-ins, I performed my first in-ring segment. The heels attacked the two main wrestlers of our stable, and the rest of us ran out to make the save. I performed my finishing technique for the time being, basically just the downward spiral, and the cheer of the crowd was such an adrenaline rush that I have yet to find something like it.
Because of the reaction of this segment, I began receiving spots in multi-man tag matches, but before I did, I traveled down to West Virginia to perform on a show with Buff Bagwell that saw maybe fifteen people in attendance. During a badly-constructed one-on-one match with someone who shouldn't have been in there any more than I should've, a ducked clothesline went bad and I took the full force of his bicep to the bridge of my nose. That was my first concussion.
In my first match that anyone saw, one of the guys on the other team threw me into the ropes wanting me to duck a clothesline. Unfortunately for my head, all I heard was "clothesline", and once again I took a clothesline right to the head. I didn't get a concussion, but I had a painful reminder to duck on my hairline for a few weeks.
Perhaps the worst experience I had in wrestling was a six-man tag match, where the veterans decided to take advantage of the fact that I was a rookie and in no position to fight back. As the face in peril, in a matter of two minutes, I took a full force clothesline in the corner, a catapult into the corner that had me receive a full-on forearm to the face while being catapulted into it, a helo to the chest, and a leg drop to the head while being held in a Boston Crab. It resulted in my second concussion, and the awakening of the fact that wrestling can hurt, and there are veterans who will take advantage of the hierarchy in professional wrestling, knowing that you are a rookie and if you hit back, you could receive a knock on your reputation for not respecting the veterans.
I continued to wrestle for another year, winning a few matches and participating in a few tag-team championship matches. The end of wrestling came when the pains in my back wouldn't go away like they used to, and X-rays revealed that I had developed scoliosis, and that the discs in my lower back were fusing together. I wrestled a few more times after that... trust me, you can't resist the rush... and while wrestling itself didn't seem to hurt it, the days after made it even worse. I decided I'd like to walk when I'm 40, and when I moved away, I didn't follow up by trying to find another wrestling organization.
What is the point of that long story, and what is its relation to this one? Well allow me to explain...
First of all, wrestling hurts. Even just falling hurts until you get used to it. The ropes are usually stiff and they are not fun to hit. Back-bumping hurts for awhile, and so do even the simplest of moves. None of it is easy to remember, especially when people are watching and you're expected to not ever make a mistake. I performed in 18 career matches, never in front of more than 260 people, so I may not be the all-around expert on this, but I do have a perspective that comes from actual participation.
You find yourself thinking about all the trashing of any wrestling you've ever done through your entire life, and realize just how difficult it is, let alone on the biggest of levels. Before when you criticized someone for being boring, you find out that even those simple moves aren't quite so simple, and maybe it's not the greatest idea in the world to do a double reverse shooting star press headbutt from the ladder. It may not take years off your life, but the risk of injury, immediate and long-term, is very high. In fact, wrestling itself, even if you never do a high risk move, the one thing you have to understand is that it's almost a certainty that your body is going to hurt somehow forever. It's not natural to fall on your back or flip on it a few thousand times; you're going to feel it.
So you may do your best to avoid reading about yourself on the internet, as I did, or you may read the message board as others did. Whether you read it yourself or not, people are going to relay the information, so you find out about it. Regardless of what you told yourself, that people behind a keyboard don't mean anything, the words sink deep. You're out there risking your body, your health, and possibly your life, and just like everywhere else on the internet, they're tearing you to absolute shreds. They don't care if you're new, learning... No one is off limits. It's demotivating, to say the very least, to have people who have never stepped in a ring claim themselves to be experts and holding only the greatest of greatest as standard when they're going to see an indy show in East Bumfuck. It's not realistic, but since when has the internet been a breeding ground for rationality and reason?
At some point, the combination of hearing all of that about yourself and realizing that at one time, you may have been like that, it's also sobering. In addition, you also begin to see wrestling in a new light. Knowing the business first hand may take some of the enjoyment out of it, but you find new respect for people. Things like psychology, technicalities, little transitions become noticeable. You begin to pick up on subtle things that you didn't notice before, and you find wrestlers you may have previously found boring now strangely entertaining.
I'm not saying that you end up loving every wrestler and enjoying everything... That's not true. I've learned to appreciate what I do like more though, and this year have found great enjoyment in HBK vs. Undertaker, the Nexus angle, Daniel Bryan vs. the Miz, or anything with the Miz wrestling or talking... The rise of John Morrison, the title run of Sheamus, Randy Orton becoming the new anti-hero, and even, dare I say it... John Cena.
I used to be on the anti-Cena bandwagon. Maybe it's the long-running Nexus angle, but I tell you, I have found a great respect for that man. Managing to stay mostly healthy, getting that consistent of a reaction, and keeping his nose clean for that long... Mostly just being a decent human being more than anything, you find new respect for that man, and how he can make absolutely anyone look like a million bucks. Is he the greatest technical wrestler in history? No. But he is extremely talented, much like the Rock, at taking nothing and turning it into something good. The Nexus angle wouldn't be what it is without John Cena, with them or against them.
I see wrestling a whole lot differently now, and while a good bit of it doesn't entertain me from a fan standpoint anymore, I realize it's not directed at me now. It's a new generation of fans, and there's nothing wrong with that. The business has passed a lot of us by, but I respect every single wrestler that has ever made it past the first day of training. Many of them don't, and for good reason... It's not for everyone. It wasn't for me, and I made it longer than a lot of people do. Even after a long time of working out, I'm still a stick with not a lot of strength. I'm at 205, up from the 150 I was two years ago, and with the exception of the shape of my back, I'm in the best condition of my life. Professional wrestling has given me many things, and that's why I now see it in this light.
I'm not saying people aren't entitled to their opinion, but I now truly don't understand why people bother if they hate so much. On the internet in wrestling, it seems like you can't please anyone unless there's an hour long iron man match featuring CM Punk and Bryan Danielson that goes to a draw and continues for another hour before a deciding submission. But then half of the fans would criticize it for being too long and boring and not seeing four double flipping diving moonsaults from the roof every minute.
The point is those who trash new guys who are green or those who use the Doom moves, or can never be pleased no matter what happens and feel the need to rip it apart all the time, are missing the point. Anyone who has made it to the level of wrestling where it's televised, they have busted their asses and gone through massive amounts of training, pain, and adversity to make it where they are. It's not wrong to find someone unentertaining, or to hope that someone you like makes it to the big time, but chances are there's a reason they haven't.
Wrestling taught me one thing above anything, and that's respect. Respect for the business and everyone in it. The internal part of the wrestling business is built on respect, and it is very easy to lose it. Every ounce of it is earned, and sometimes it is earned when you come to the realization that you aren't meant for it. Now having an idea of what being a wrestler is like, I can't say that I'll cheer for every single wrestler on television, or that I'll even find every part of a show worth watching. But they have my respect for making it and doing what they do. And while I know that the internet will never change and most people will never be satisfied without being armchair and keyboard critics, at least one person's mind has been shown the light so to speak.
So Len, while taking a very roundabout way of doing it, I support what you've said. Well done, sir.
There's a lot to be said here, but this was the section of the column that really got my attention. It seems to be the norm on the internet for anything, not just wrestling, to feel smart by absolutely trashing any and everything that has ever existed and will exist, whether it be movies, TV shows, wrestling, politicians, Roy Halladay throwing a no-hitter, you name it. If you ever want a true glimpse into the bane of humanity, pull up the first video you find on YouTube of anything. Message boards and comment sections have replaced the proverbial bathroom walls of society. It could be a video of a kitten playing in a meadow, and you'll find twenty-seven people who verbally castrate not only the cat, but the person who posted it for being a complete failure as a human being, thus suggesting they should end their lives forcefully with a hatchet to the face... although to be fair, most of the words in that past sentence would've been misspelled. After all, on the internet, if you spell correctly and use punctuation, you're a "fag".
I'm not saying that I'm exempt from this either. Once upon a time, I discovered independent wrestling, and for a period of time, found it necessary to tear everything apart because the stuff I was seeing live in front of 150 people was "better". Not that I wasn't seeing great wrestling during that time, but looking back on it, I now find that it was just a different experience. Being there live with personal interaction, seeing the moves up close, having the wrestlers respond to you and getting to meet them, it seemed so much more fun than a sea of 20,000 people and wrestlers who rarely played to them.
I am however not going to defend the period of time that had me rarely viewing the product, 2006-08 or so. A lot of people fell out of love with wrestling with the Chris Benoit tragedy, and while some of us have learned to separate the performer from the man and his actions, it drove many away, and I do not fault them for that. It was painful for a lot of fans, especially the ones who greatly admired one of the best technical performers the business has ever seen.
But something else happened around 2008 for me that started to change my view on professional wrestling as a whole. I began training for professional wrestling.
The first time I went out to a tryout for professional wrestling, let's just say my back was so black and yellow it could've been confused for a Pittsburgh jersey. To the point in time of my first tryout, I had been conditioning for maybe a month, and weighed an imposing 150 pounds soaking wet. I had no meat to absorb the blows, no muscle to lift people, and the complete wrong attitude about it. I didn't learn the rules of the road, that you don't talk about the people you've met and know, because nobody cares and it makes you look like a mark. I lasted two days during my first run in training, because after the six hour tryout, the second day, I had absolutely nothing left. While I am proud I survived the tryout in the physical condition I was in, I was nowhere near ready.
A year later, I went out for it again. I was still very skinny, but I had started conditioning. The muscle mass was slowly beginning to grow, and I went in with the right attitude this time. I was associated with a wrestling organization that allowed trainees to participate in some manner of the show, and even newbies got placed in multi-man matches and battle royals.
The sobering experience of my first live show was a painful one. Two minutes into the match, a veteran performer much larger than me threw my skinny ass over the top rope, landing me hip-first on the gym floor. My entire side was bruised up, and I never wanted to go back to wrestling again. However this time my drive was there, and I kept going back.
After being placed in a stable called the Bloodline and doing some run-ins, I performed my first in-ring segment. The heels attacked the two main wrestlers of our stable, and the rest of us ran out to make the save. I performed my finishing technique for the time being, basically just the downward spiral, and the cheer of the crowd was such an adrenaline rush that I have yet to find something like it.
Because of the reaction of this segment, I began receiving spots in multi-man tag matches, but before I did, I traveled down to West Virginia to perform on a show with Buff Bagwell that saw maybe fifteen people in attendance. During a badly-constructed one-on-one match with someone who shouldn't have been in there any more than I should've, a ducked clothesline went bad and I took the full force of his bicep to the bridge of my nose. That was my first concussion.
In my first match that anyone saw, one of the guys on the other team threw me into the ropes wanting me to duck a clothesline. Unfortunately for my head, all I heard was "clothesline", and once again I took a clothesline right to the head. I didn't get a concussion, but I had a painful reminder to duck on my hairline for a few weeks.
Perhaps the worst experience I had in wrestling was a six-man tag match, where the veterans decided to take advantage of the fact that I was a rookie and in no position to fight back. As the face in peril, in a matter of two minutes, I took a full force clothesline in the corner, a catapult into the corner that had me receive a full-on forearm to the face while being catapulted into it, a helo to the chest, and a leg drop to the head while being held in a Boston Crab. It resulted in my second concussion, and the awakening of the fact that wrestling can hurt, and there are veterans who will take advantage of the hierarchy in professional wrestling, knowing that you are a rookie and if you hit back, you could receive a knock on your reputation for not respecting the veterans.
I continued to wrestle for another year, winning a few matches and participating in a few tag-team championship matches. The end of wrestling came when the pains in my back wouldn't go away like they used to, and X-rays revealed that I had developed scoliosis, and that the discs in my lower back were fusing together. I wrestled a few more times after that... trust me, you can't resist the rush... and while wrestling itself didn't seem to hurt it, the days after made it even worse. I decided I'd like to walk when I'm 40, and when I moved away, I didn't follow up by trying to find another wrestling organization.
What is the point of that long story, and what is its relation to this one? Well allow me to explain...
First of all, wrestling hurts. Even just falling hurts until you get used to it. The ropes are usually stiff and they are not fun to hit. Back-bumping hurts for awhile, and so do even the simplest of moves. None of it is easy to remember, especially when people are watching and you're expected to not ever make a mistake. I performed in 18 career matches, never in front of more than 260 people, so I may not be the all-around expert on this, but I do have a perspective that comes from actual participation.
You find yourself thinking about all the trashing of any wrestling you've ever done through your entire life, and realize just how difficult it is, let alone on the biggest of levels. Before when you criticized someone for being boring, you find out that even those simple moves aren't quite so simple, and maybe it's not the greatest idea in the world to do a double reverse shooting star press headbutt from the ladder. It may not take years off your life, but the risk of injury, immediate and long-term, is very high. In fact, wrestling itself, even if you never do a high risk move, the one thing you have to understand is that it's almost a certainty that your body is going to hurt somehow forever. It's not natural to fall on your back or flip on it a few thousand times; you're going to feel it.
So you may do your best to avoid reading about yourself on the internet, as I did, or you may read the message board as others did. Whether you read it yourself or not, people are going to relay the information, so you find out about it. Regardless of what you told yourself, that people behind a keyboard don't mean anything, the words sink deep. You're out there risking your body, your health, and possibly your life, and just like everywhere else on the internet, they're tearing you to absolute shreds. They don't care if you're new, learning... No one is off limits. It's demotivating, to say the very least, to have people who have never stepped in a ring claim themselves to be experts and holding only the greatest of greatest as standard when they're going to see an indy show in East Bumfuck. It's not realistic, but since when has the internet been a breeding ground for rationality and reason?
At some point, the combination of hearing all of that about yourself and realizing that at one time, you may have been like that, it's also sobering. In addition, you also begin to see wrestling in a new light. Knowing the business first hand may take some of the enjoyment out of it, but you find new respect for people. Things like psychology, technicalities, little transitions become noticeable. You begin to pick up on subtle things that you didn't notice before, and you find wrestlers you may have previously found boring now strangely entertaining.
I'm not saying that you end up loving every wrestler and enjoying everything... That's not true. I've learned to appreciate what I do like more though, and this year have found great enjoyment in HBK vs. Undertaker, the Nexus angle, Daniel Bryan vs. the Miz, or anything with the Miz wrestling or talking... The rise of John Morrison, the title run of Sheamus, Randy Orton becoming the new anti-hero, and even, dare I say it... John Cena.
I used to be on the anti-Cena bandwagon. Maybe it's the long-running Nexus angle, but I tell you, I have found a great respect for that man. Managing to stay mostly healthy, getting that consistent of a reaction, and keeping his nose clean for that long... Mostly just being a decent human being more than anything, you find new respect for that man, and how he can make absolutely anyone look like a million bucks. Is he the greatest technical wrestler in history? No. But he is extremely talented, much like the Rock, at taking nothing and turning it into something good. The Nexus angle wouldn't be what it is without John Cena, with them or against them.
I see wrestling a whole lot differently now, and while a good bit of it doesn't entertain me from a fan standpoint anymore, I realize it's not directed at me now. It's a new generation of fans, and there's nothing wrong with that. The business has passed a lot of us by, but I respect every single wrestler that has ever made it past the first day of training. Many of them don't, and for good reason... It's not for everyone. It wasn't for me, and I made it longer than a lot of people do. Even after a long time of working out, I'm still a stick with not a lot of strength. I'm at 205, up from the 150 I was two years ago, and with the exception of the shape of my back, I'm in the best condition of my life. Professional wrestling has given me many things, and that's why I now see it in this light.
I'm not saying people aren't entitled to their opinion, but I now truly don't understand why people bother if they hate so much. On the internet in wrestling, it seems like you can't please anyone unless there's an hour long iron man match featuring CM Punk and Bryan Danielson that goes to a draw and continues for another hour before a deciding submission. But then half of the fans would criticize it for being too long and boring and not seeing four double flipping diving moonsaults from the roof every minute.
The point is those who trash new guys who are green or those who use the Doom moves, or can never be pleased no matter what happens and feel the need to rip it apart all the time, are missing the point. Anyone who has made it to the level of wrestling where it's televised, they have busted their asses and gone through massive amounts of training, pain, and adversity to make it where they are. It's not wrong to find someone unentertaining, or to hope that someone you like makes it to the big time, but chances are there's a reason they haven't.
Wrestling taught me one thing above anything, and that's respect. Respect for the business and everyone in it. The internal part of the wrestling business is built on respect, and it is very easy to lose it. Every ounce of it is earned, and sometimes it is earned when you come to the realization that you aren't meant for it. Now having an idea of what being a wrestler is like, I can't say that I'll cheer for every single wrestler on television, or that I'll even find every part of a show worth watching. But they have my respect for making it and doing what they do. And while I know that the internet will never change and most people will never be satisfied without being armchair and keyboard critics, at least one person's mind has been shown the light so to speak.
So Len, while taking a very roundabout way of doing it, I support what you've said. Well done, sir.