American wrestling

[oldagepensioner]

Had the misfortune to see a bit of American wrestling this afternoon.Incredibly violent which doesn't surprise me being American but can it really be called a sport?Makes the stuff we watched in the 70s look distinctly tame but almost an art form by comparison.

[300bhp/ton]

oldagepensioner said:

Had the misfortune to see a bit of American wrestling this afternoon.Incredibly violent which doesn't surprise me being American but can it really be called a sport?Makes the stuff we watched in the 70s look distinctly tame but almost an art form by comparison.

Is it called sport? I thought it was billed as entertainment normally.

Clearly the participants need to be skill, fit and athletic. But with a script to follow and predetermined outcomes, it can't really be a sport.

[Wacky Racer]

Load of tosh.

Proper wrestling was British in the 1960/70's

Big Daddy
Giant Haystacks
Mike Marino
Kendo Nagasaki
Leon Arras (Actor Brian Glover)
Rollerball Rocco
Jim Hussey
Mike (Flash) Jordan
Deaf & dumb Alan Kilby
Mal Kirk (The yorkshire miner)
Jackie (Mr TV) Pallo
Count Bartelli (From Crewe)
Big John Lees
Les Kellett


I was a big Pepe fan though.

[Chainsaw Rebuild]

I used to be completely baffled by WWF/WWE type of wrestling - its so obviously fake. Then I realised, its basically musical theatre! It has heroes and villains, a plot, choreographed dances (the actual wrestling) and so on. Then it made more sense - its absolutely not a sport, its a show.

[biggbn]

Wacky Racer said:

Load of tosh.

Proper wrestling was British in the 1960/70's

Big Daddy
Giant Haystacks
Mike Marino
Kendo Nagasaki
Leon Arras (Actor Brian Glover)
Rollerball Rocco
Jim Hussey
Mike (Flash) Jordan
Deaf & dumb Alan Kilby
Mal Kirk (The yorkshire miner)
Jackie (Mr TV) Pallo
Count Bartelli (From Crewe)
Big John Lees
Les Kellett


I was a big Pepe fan though.

Yeah, cos none of that was fixed entertainment was it?

[DrEMa]

oldagepensioner said:

Had the misfortune to see a bit of American wrestling this afternoon.Incredibly violent which doesn't surprise me being American but can it really be called a sport?Makes the stuff we watched in the 70s look distinctly tame but almost an art form by comparison.

Depends which stuff you saw. A lot of the modern style, especially on AEW is very flippy gymnastics with very obvious cooperation.
If you go back and watch some of the stuff with Fit Findlay, Marty Jones, Rollerball Rocco, Steve (known as William) Regal from late 70s early 80s - some of that is pretty brutal if you know what to watch out for.

As an aside, I'm in a 6 man tag match with former WWE star Scotty 2 Hotty next Friday (already nervous).

[the-norseman]

I used to love WWF around 1998-2002 when I was a kid, its more "entertainment" used to love the more bloody matches or extreme so some ECW stuff as well.

From what I've seen recently of WWE its all PC/PG now, AEW a little similar to old WWF/E

[pincher]

DrEMa said:

As an aside, I'm in a 6 man tag match with former WWE star Scotty 2 Hotty next Friday (already nervous).

With or against? Hope you get to worm with him

[DrEMa]

pincher said:

With or against? Hope you get to worm with him

With, have tried but can't do the worm foot to head, how he does it (although me making an arse of it might be quite a good spot in the match).

[pincher]

Haha . Good luck and have fun

Edited by pincher on Saturday 28th January 22:03

[DodgyGeezer]

To a point it is 'just' theatre - however it's theatre where the actors are frequently very good athletes

[J6542]

Joe Rogan has a few podcasts with ex wrestlers. The Jake the snake one is really interesting.
Me and my friends all loved the wrestling in the early 90,s, a big group of us watching tapes of the Royal Rumble around a friends house, before someone would get suplexed on the couch.

[InformationSuperHighway]

J6542 said:

Joe Rogan has a few podcasts with ex wrestlers. The Jake the snake one is really interesting.
Me and my friends all loved the wrestling in the early 90,s, a big group of us watching tapes of the Royal Rumble around a friends house, before someone would get suplexed on the couch.

Likewise the Undertaker episode was very good.

Yes theatre, yes scripted but I wouldn’t say ‘fake’ from an athletic perspective (maybe the punching is a bit pathetic ) but the top rope athletic slamming off the tables etc is body on the line stuff.

[Antony Moxey]

DrEMa said:

pincher said:

With or against? Hope you get to worm with him

With, have tried but can't do the worm foot to head, how he does it (although me making an arse of it might be quite a good spot in the match).

Please ensure you film it and put up on here for us all to enjoy, it sounds properly awesome.

[irish boy]

I loved it as a 10 year old. The ultimate warrior, Randy savage etc. There was a magic and a mystery around it.

The athletic ability and the willingness to take punishment is incredible, undertaker vs mankind hell in a cell being the ultimate expression of this, taking that fall, concussion/broken ribs/dislocated jaw/shoulder yet kept going. Those guys and many like them put their bodies on the line for not amazing pay in the name of entertainment. No wonder their survival rate is horrific.

Then there’s guys like New Jack who are legitimately tried to kill someone in the ring.

2 recommendations for viewing are the wrestler with Micky Rourke and dark side of the ring.

[DrEMa]

Antony Moxey said:

Please ensure you film it and put up on here for us all to enjoy, it sounds properly awesome.

I'll post up a link to the youtube show when the company release it

[DrEMa]

irish boy said:

I loved it as a 10 year old. The ultimate warrior, Randy savage etc. There was a magic and a mystery around it.

The athletic ability and the willingness to take punishment is incredible, undertaker vs mankind hell in a cell being the ultimate expression of this, taking that fall, concussion/broken ribs/dislocated jaw/shoulder yet kept going. Those guys and many like them put their bodies on the line for not amazing pay in the name of entertainment. No wonder their survival rate is horrific.

Then there’s guys like New Jack who are legitimately tried to kill someone in the ring.

2 recommendations for viewing are the wrestler with Micky Rourke and dark side of the ring.

I love the taker mankind match, but there is a strong arguement that this was the trigger for a lot of the daft convoluted and needlessly dangerous stunts that guys sometimes do these days - you always want to go bigger and better - but how do you top what they did?

dark side of the ring is fascinating and harrowing. The grizzly smith, bruiser brody, moolah and benoit episodes particularly

[ZedLeg]

Mick Foley had been pushing the limits of what was sensible for years.

Hell in a Cell wasn’t even the trigger for WWE getting more extreme. It was a step in a chain.

I’ve watched wrestling since I was a kid, don’t watch much of the big American companies any more. Mostly Indie american and european and a bit of NJPW.

[DrEMa]

ZedLeg said:

Mick Foley had been pushing the limits of what was sensible for years.

Hell in a Cell wasn’t even the trigger for WWE getting more extreme. It was a step in a chain.

I’ve watched wrestling since I was a kid, don’t watch much of the big American companies any more. Mostly Indie american and european and a bit of NJPW.

I'm not talking WWE, I'm talking the shift in perceived ideas of what wrestling should be by guys coming up in the business - the statement was made by Kevin Nash (and agreed upon by guys like Jim Cornette) - these are people who like and respect Mick so don't say this lightly.

[ZedLeg]

Yeah, I know who says it. The less said about Corny the better though.

I still don’t agree. The next generation of wrestlers who really pushed the limits were already around. The Hardys and Edge & Christian were already in WWE and the rest of the ECW guys were just around the corner.

Not to mention that WCW had some crazy match stipulations in the 80s. Wargames and that weird one where they were all up on scaffolding in the roof of the arena come to mind. Anyone who watched the likes of Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair blade the st out of each other knows what’s up

If anything the attitude era was a return to history for WWE after Vince made it more family friendly for syndication.