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Are there any wrestling fans here?
I've tried searching for wrestling tags on ~tv and ~sports a few times and haven't seen any posts. I wonder how many other people have done the same and have just given up when they saw there was no discussion.
Feel free to leave a comment here if you're a fan of any kind of wrestling. We can use this thread to gauge the audience. If other fans here see that there's enough interest, they might be more willing to drop some their own OC on tildes. When we get enough people here we can start making live discussions for the shows.
Big AEW fan, seeing them at Wembley in August! I was thinking we should have a weekly scheduled megathread about all things wrasslin whilst the community grows.
I'm still curious if there's been any interest in starting a wrestling community here with everything going on with third party reddit apps now.
Very interested! I am a huge wrestling fan (I watch a lot of AEW mostly). I participated actively in /r/SquaredCircle on Reddit.
I'm a fan but I watch old school stuff almost exclusively; I do catch Mania every year, though, and once in a while I'll watch a big show that captures my interest.
I'm a fan. Mostly watching WWE, Impact, and ROH, but I do attend local indie shows.
No love for NJPW?
No, but not because I don't have interest. I do, but I don't have access like I do to WWE, ROH, and Impact. I have WWE Network, full deluxe live Hulu, and Fite, among other streaming services I pay for. NJPWWorld would be another subscription service, and I only have so many hours in the day to watch wrestling. I pay for the live Hulu for Raw and Smackdown, Impact is a bonus that I probably wouldn't keep up on if I didn't already pay for live Hulu. ROH is free on Fite. I mean I'm a fan but I'm also a cheap fan.
id be open to a squaredcircle sub here as well
I'm not sure how we go about doing that. I'll have to read through all the documentation. I wasn't sure of wrestling would belong in ~tv or ~sports so I went with tv for now but it would be great if we could get a ~wrestling or ~squaredcircle.
anyway to message the mods or whoever? i am trying to get the hang of this place
Explain to me what the appeal of watching people slowly and chronically injure themselves on TV for money is? I've never understood it.
The same goes for American football.
The appeal for me personally is all of the things that go on behind the scenes. It's one of the few tv shows were you can constantly get new information leaked about where story lines are going before they happen and it's fun to follow all of the backstage drama. I can't think of any other show where the on screen characters get portrayed a certain way based on something the actor did.
You can root for your underdogs and get worked up when you hear that they aren't going to get pushed as a top star on television due to some ridiculous circumstance like the owner not liking that the guy is a vegan. It really makes for some amazing stories when the guy you like finally succeeds through sheer hard work and determination with overwhelming support from the fans.
As far as them slowly injuring themselves goes, it sucks to see them get hurt but it's a lot better than it used to be. They try to make it as safe as they can and use frequent camera cuts to hide when they are purposefully missing each other. They have ways to doing things that make moves look more devastating than they actually are. A common thing to do is to discreetly slap different parts of their body/gear while they throw a strike to add the sound effect of hitting someone while keeping everything safe. They ban a lot of the moves that target the head and neck to avoid concussions and CTE as best they can. That being said, you still have performers who want nothing more than to put on the best show possible who go out there and do dangerous moves off the top rope that will cause injuries in the long run. I cringe every time I see something particularly brutal but I still try to enjoy the move for what it is because otherwise they are wrecking their bodies' for nothing.
That's another thing that you touched on. It's all fake. Scripted.
To me, it's like watching a game that you know has been rigged from the start.
I don't think most fans look at it as a sporting event. It's a television show that takes place in the "WWE Universe". You have good guys fighting against bad guys and they are out there to tell a story. We're in a unique period of wrestling where they are trying to blend things in with reality. Previously, someone on the smaller side would be treated as a joke in the ring and not given a fair shot against the main eventers. They would lose just because they didn't have the look the owner of the company wanted. With social media being what it is today, now we hear the backstage stories about this wrestler is being treated unfairly because of their look. This causes people to talk about how great they are more and more which makes them more popular. The company decides to ignore the fans and not capitalize on the wrestler's popularity. When the fans get ignored enough, they start hijacking other segments of the show chanting for that wrestler even when they aren't on air. Eventually it forces the company's hand to put them in the spotlight. It's such a great feeling to know your support plays a part in changing the plans of a juggernaut like the WWE. It's that kind of fan interaction that keeps a lot of people interested in a show that is scripted. You may think your favorite isn't going to win because he's not the company's golden boy but when he finally does and it surprises everyone, it's some of the best television there is. A lot of the shows are formulaic and predictable but the surprises invoke so much emotion that it's worth watching all of the bad parts.
Sorry if any of these comments are repetitive or nonsensical. I've left and come back to this post many times as I've been trying to get some work done.
I'm home! I watch AEW, ROH, NJPW & GCW mostly. No WWE, at all. The fast cuts make me ill and their "product" is meh to these eyes.
Britwres fan checking in! I mostly only follow local indie promotions "IRL" though; I dont really follow any TV or streaming wrestling.
That's cool, I always thought it was cool that Britwres was almost a community of its own. The shows I've seemed clips of looked like a blast to attend. My favorite wrestling entrance has to be Grado's Goldberg entrance to Madonna's Like a Prayer due to the whole crowd singing along. I think there was a video of the official feed with the announcers explaining who he is but with squaredcircle down I can't find it. (Edit: eventually found it but sadly Facebook is hosting it.) UK crowds have the best and most unique chants I've seen!
Do you have any plans on attending All In? I think tickets should be pretty cheap since they're trying to sell out Wembley. The big match rumored is Will Ospreay vs Kenny Omega which should be insane.
Some friends of mine will be attending All In, but sadly I have had to say "no". I'd love to go - particualrly to attend all the fringe shows, etc - but after being completely financially irresponsible all through 2022 , I am now very close to getting myself back 'in the black'; a big trip to London spending a long weekend going to shows would absolutely annihilate my finances again and set me back several months, so I had to pass it up.
We definitely do like a chant! It's always a noisy show, and there are always several 'factions' in the crowd competing to get the best chants over and make everyone laugh - a million bonus point if you can get the wrestlers to corpse! We can be pretty bad 'marks for ourselves', but it's a pretty great time.