Wrestling Is Fake...

We’ve all heard this one, some of us more times than others. But the nanosecond we openly admit to being a fan of wrestling we get the inevitable miscreant who thinks they are shattering our world with their intellect telling us, “You know wrestling is fake, right?”.

I had no idea!!! Are you going to tell me Santa Claus isn’t real? The Easter Bunny? If you tell me the Tooth Fairy is not real I’m going to burn this motherfucker down right now.

The Irony of the Stupidity

The WWE and wrestling in general, at one time, did go to great lengths to try and convince you everything you saw in the ring was real. Their job was to convince you there really is a place called “Parts Unknown”, “Death Valley” and various other fictional locations that matched up with a wrestlers gimmick. To their credit, they did a great job….because kids and teenagers believed it while the adults just enjoyed the entertainment value of it all. Oh and the bodies….my oh my some of them bodies.

Breaking News: That’s what the hell wrestling has ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT!

Let me make a few presumptions here that are more than likely true of these “wrestling is fake” people. My guess is they are HUGE followers of boxing and the UFC….aka real fighting. I would also venture a guess they have no less than half a dozen television/cable shows they watch religiously (Walking Dead, Orange is the New Black, etc). So it would stand to reason they know the difference between what’s real and what is scripted and can appreciate the entertainment from both, right. RIGHT?

Ever since WWE got “the F out” and became a publicly traded company, they have not made much of an effort to convince anyone with a working brain stem that their entertainment is not scripted. Peruse some of the programming on their network or on Youtube and you’ll see “good guys” and “bad guys” hanging out together, doing stuff together that if you were to believe the storylines, should never happen. The WWE is very much on board with people knowing the entertainment…..let me say that again, ENTERTAINMENT, is scripted with match results already predetermined. Just like ANY entertainment show on television today that doesn’t involve the “reality” genre….and even half of those are scripted but that’s a topic for another day. One of the great differences between WWE and wrestling entertainment overall is if a character is not connecting with a crowd and takes away from the flow of the show they are repackaged, relocated, replaced and sometimes even dismissed from the company. How many shows do you watch with an absolute trainwreck of a cast member or two that you have to put up with because they are under contract and therefore will continue to be in every episode no matter how horrible they are?

There Is A Reason For This Warning

When you break it all the way down, professional wrestlers are stunt men and women with scripts. That’s the bottom line. The moves they pull off in the ring and outside of it are nothing short of mind boggling sometimes and while choreography definitely has its place in the developing of matches, there are some moves that simply cannot be faked. Like…..jumping off the goddamn Hell in a Cell cage. Getting put through tables. Getting thrown off of ladders, out of a ring and landing on something about as cushy as a yoda mat. Fake landings? I think not. In the almost 30 years I’ve been watching wrestling I have seen every conceivable injury you can imagine happen to these men and women of the squared circle. Many of them come back from injury, some never do. There is nothing fake about the action that results in some of the most life altering injuries you will ever see. How many times do you think the action heros of the movies ACTUALLY jumped off of anything? How many times do you think they ACTUALLY landed on the pavement or grass or out of a plane and into the water? Zero. Between paid stunt men and women, green screens and ten foot tall landing cushions, I’d venture a guess that not even so much as a fingernail is broken in most scripted action scenes on television or the movies. But wrestling is “fake”?

The Self Inflicted Cognitive Dissonance and Where It Comes From

Back in the 80’s and early 90’s, before the WWE and wrestling in general became the mainstream entertainment juggernaut that it is today, it was common to hear most people deride wrestling as “fake fighting among guys in tights”. Why? Because it just hadn’t evolved yet, it was very much an overlooked and marginalized form of entertainment because it only appealed to a very small subset of the population. But it’s that very same mentality that has carried over into modern day judgement of wrestling because….here’s the kicker….they don’t actually WATCH the shows, might even be afraid they’ll like it and as such it’s “easier” to just follow the ever-dwindling crowd and say wrestling is fake as they sit down to watch their recorded, scripted TV shows full of green screens and stunt people. In short, I believe these “wrestling is fake” troglodytes WANT to watch, like and enjoy wrestling but because there are still more people saying it’s not “real” and therefore not “cool”, they can’t allow themselves to give it a try but rather just talk shit to those who do watch it. Because, you know, it makes them better than you.

Next week I'll be talking about....well.....you're just going to have to come back and see. Until then, I'm Irreparably Jaded and I know this article is a week late because....you know.....LIFE!