I've been completely burnt out on writing about wrestling for the past few days, and tonight I'm just going to watch some wrestling for the sake of watching wrestling and not to dissect and ruin it for myself. But this question just came to me, and I'm curious as to what people say.
For the longest time (I don't know how long, but long) it seemed that if you were a wrestling fan and had the Internet, you would want to know everything. I was definitely one of those people. I wanted to read every spoiler, every shoot interview, and seek out every single morsel of information about how wrestling works - how do matches get put together? How much do they call in the ring? What is calling it in the ring? Is Stone Cold really going to shoot Vince McMahon in the head on live television because I pissed my pants before Vince did. TELL ME EVERYTHING.
If you want to know something about the inner workings of wrestling, you can find it pretty easily on the Internet. That is cool. But only if you want to know that stuff.
I've come to the point where I don't want to know stuff. I want to keep the magic untouched and unmolested and unruined, so I can still watch wrestling and get the feelings it gave me when I was eleven. Lance Storm (who I site like a peer-reviewed journal on here) has said in many Q & A's on his blog that he doesn't want to reveal certain aspects of the business in order to protect it - even though he'll answer pretty much anything out of kayfabe. One person asked how near falls are best used int matches, and Lance said he wouldn't say. I like that there's some stuff we'll never know. Or if it does come out, I don't want to know it, so I'm going to go put on my Vader mask backwards and plug my ears until it's safe to stop.
How about you though? Do you keep things from yourself? If a spoiler on a dirtsheet comes up, do you click on it? Or do you avoid it in hopes of keeping some part of the magic of wrestling in tact. Whether it's a storyline spoiler or a taping spoiler or even a small note on why something happened during a match - they're all called a spoiler for a reason. They spoil wrestling (er, well, that's how I see it anyway).
It's a hard balance. I like reading about wrestling because I love it so much, but I don't want to take away what makes it great. But on the other hand, knowing more about the inner workings of a match can make you enjoy wrestling on a whole other level, which once again makes it one of the strangest and most unique forms of entertainment ever. Take Shawn Michaels vs. The Undertaker from WrestleMania XXV. In kayfabe, the point of a wrestling match is that the guys are supposed to hurt each other and try and win. But when Undertaker takes a nosedive over the top rope and accordions himself on his own head, you start to wonder if he's really hurt. This adds a whole other layer of drama to this match, where if you weren't aware of wrestling being "fake," you wouldn't understand.
Same for spotting things like guys calling things on the fly, or blading in a way that you could never, ever catch them. Those weird little things can make a match more interesting and more fun to watch, so there are pros to knowing more than the "average" fan.
Clearly, I'm on the fence. I have things I like knowing, and things I never want to know. What about you?
And if this is the first time you found out that wrestling is fake, I'm sorry. My grade three teacher had to apologize to me for saying Santa wasn't real, so I'll apologize to you. Thanks, Mr. Mac. Fuck.
I like knowing the inner-workings and behind-the-scenes stuff. Not dirtsheet gossip, but how the shows are produced, how things are plotted out, who does what role backstage, I find that interesting.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it's no different than watching a behind-the-scenes documentary on a movie. It doesn't make Iron Man any less enjoyable if I see how they constructed this scene or what the CGI team did on this scene.
But I tend to watch stuff like that after I see the movie or the TV show. I try to avoid in-depth previews and articles on movies I want to see until I see it, then I want to gobble up as much information as possible. Same goes for wrestling, I would never want to see Shawn Michaels or The Undertaker talking out of character about their match before WrestleMania, but after, I'd want to hear all about it.
I don't like reading spoilers, though some are unavoidable when you're on the internet as much as I am, and I like getting lost in the moment. But much like movies, I think it's possible to immerse yourself in the experience even if you know a lot about it. I might know they used wires for a stunt, but when I'm locked into the movie, I don't think about it.
That's generally always been my approach to wrestling as well, at least since I found out it was fake, and that was a loooooooooong time ago, like two whole months.