Pro Wrestling/WWE - What's your opinion on it?

Sofiztikated

Not a fan of soaps, so not a fan of WWE. I'm not knocking the wrestlers, they work hard I'm sure, but it doesn't tickle me at all.

But if you are, bang on ahead.

Omackeral

awec wrote: »

Mayweather v McGregor was a charade but it is really stupid to try and make any comparison between this fight and WWE. It wasn't fixed, moves weren't premeditated, they weren't dressed up as cartoon characters. It was just a really bad boxing match.

Floyd has done a WWE match at Wrestlemania. Ronda Rousey has appreared at it too. Bank on McG showing up...

leggo

osarusan wrote: »

There are no question marks hanging over it though. What you have just said is total speculation on your part, nothing else.

The notion that Mayweather and McGregor discussed how Mayweather would give him the first few rounds is absolute nonsense.

And it's absolute nonsense to say with any authority that there isn't a possibility that, in the plane journeys they shared before getting off and pretending to hate each other for the purposes of entertainment, these men didn't discuss plans for their spectacle.

If that and the fact that a person in his first boxing match managed to do better against Mayweather than world class guys like Pacquaio and Hatton in their prime doesn't raise questions, what does? And how do you explain outliers like the odds I brought up? You understand how bookmakers odds work right? You understand the sports and participants involved too yeah? So you understand that there's no way a bookie could be pretty much certain neither man would get knocked down when you're dealing with a KO specialist and a first-timer (not to mention the fight being perhaps controversially stopped before said knockdown) to offer those odds? Yet they did, and they were right to do so. You're saying it's nonsense to find that a tiny bit suspicious? If you don't find that suspicious, you're talking absolute nonsense yourself and don't understand the situation.

We may never know. And I'm a wrestling fan so I'll happily take it all at face value and go along for the ride with them, it entertained me. But to do the same and then mock people who do the same about an interest that's honest in its dishonesty is laughably naive!

DrumSteve

To anyone saying it's fake...

Would you jump off a cage? Knowing you had to go through a table at the bottom?

osarusan

leggo wrote: »

If that and the fact that a person in his first boxing match managed to do better against Mayweather than world class guys like Pacquaio and Hatton in their prime doesn't raise questions, what does? And how do you explain outliers like the odds I brought up? You understand how bookmakers odds work right? You understand the sports and participants involved too yeah? So you understand that there's no way a bookie could be pretty much certain neither man would get knocked down when you're dealing with a KO specialist and a first-timer (not to mention the fight being perhaps controversially stopped before said knockdown) to offer those odds? Yet they did, and they were right to do so. You're saying it's nonsense to find that a tiny bit suspicious? If you don't find that suspicious, you're talking absolute nonsense yourself and don't understand the situation.

It may have been his boxing debut, but he is already a trained and skilled fighter, and he was fighting a boxer well-known for being conservative early on while he analyses his opponents. I would say that he didn't do better than either Pacquiao (who lasted to decision, and won 4 rounds on judges scorecards) or Hatton (who was stopped in the same round and also did well early before being worked out and ground down, by a younger, faster Mayweather).

I think the bookies' odds can be explained by Mayweather being both incredibly difficult to hit, and being a conservative fighter without huge power who is content to win rounds through careful precise boxing, and the bookies would have given McGregor little chance of knocking him down.

I don't find anything you've said even a tiny bit suspicious at all. I watched the fight, and didn't find anything about the fight itself or the outcome even a tiny bit suspicious either.

I still think that the idea that there would be any coordination or conspiracy, which, if discovered, would jeopardise the purse of both fighters, is incredibly unlikely.

Omackeral

DrumSteve wrote: »

To anyone saying it's fake...

Would you jump off a cage? Knowing you had to go through a table at the bottom?

I've no issue with anyone calling it fake tbh. It's scripted so the outcomes are "fake". It's when they say it to you as if they're informing you for the first time. We know it's scripted. If they think it doesn't hurt or doesn't take athleticism, that says more about their ignorance.

leggo

osarusan wrote: »

It may have been his boxing debut, but he is already a trained and skilled fighter, and he was fighting a boxer well-known for being conservative early on while he analyses his opponents. I would say that he didn't do better than either Pacquiao (who lasted to decision, and won 4 rounds on judges scorecards) or Hatton (who was stopped in the same round and also did well early before being worked out and ground down, by a younger, faster Mayweather).

I think the bookies' odds can be explained by Mayweather being both incredibly difficult to hit, and being a conservative fighter without huge power who is content to win rounds through careful precise boxing, and the bookies would have given McGregor little chance of knocking him down.

I don't find anything you've said even a tiny bit suspicious at all. I watched the fight, and didn't find anything about the fight itself or the outcome even a tiny bit suspicious either.

I still think that the idea that there would be any coordination or conspiracy, which, if discovered, would jeopardise the purse of both fighters, is incredibly unlikely.

1/9 is a certainty. It leaves room for no doubt and is bad business on the bookies part to set odds that low because nobody is going to take them. For example, you'd almost never find a football match with one team favoured at 1/9, no matter how big the gap in quality was. For context, they were more sure of that than Mayweather winning. They were also more sure of that than that it was going to end in a Mayweather KO. How can you say it's more likely that Mayweather will knock him out than there will be a knockdown?!

Again, if you don't find that suspicious, that's more on you. McGregor himself said he was going down if the ref had let it continue. It was far from a sure thing that there wouldn't be a knockdown, in fact had it gone on longer there would've been. But the bookies always win and they did there too!

The_Mac

I'd love to train to be an indie wrestler myself, just to experience what it's like in the ring. I love wrestling, yes I know it's scripted, but getting lost in a great match can be a ton of fun. The one thing I don't like people saying is looking down on the wrestler's for not being "real athletes". The lads who do it on a regular basis put their bodies through hell each time. I think people don't realise that the wrestling mat is only wood with a bit of padded canvas on it. Wrestling is an entertainment art form. When it's done right, it can shock you, make you jump out of your seat or make you seriously hate someone. On the other hand there are some promotions such as DDT or Ireland's own OTT which are pure comedy and do some brilliantly funny matches. A prime example being Kota Ibushi vs. Yoshihiko, in which one of the best wrestlers in the world at the moment wrestles a blow up sex doll (I'm not joking)

I guess my point is that people need to stop seeing wrestling as a "fake sport" and more of an entertainment art form. After all, it's called sports entertainment for a reason.

osarusan

leggo wrote: »

1/9 is a certainty. It leaves room for no doubt and is bad business on the bookies part to set odds that low because nobody is going to take them. For example, you'd almost never find a football match with one team favoured at 1/9, no matter how big the gap in quality was!

Both England and Northern Ireland are 1/40 to win their games this weekend.

How can you say it's more likely that Mayweather will knock him out than there will be a knockdown?!

Because a knockout means a KO, a TKO, and a retirement. A TKO without knockdown was exactly what happened.

Anyway, I have said what I wanted to say, and it's off-topic anyway. I will just repeat that I saw nothing during the fight or at its ending that made me suspicious in any way.

Bounty Hunter

How people respond if you tell them you like Pro Wrestling tells an awful lot about a person.


If they respond by telling you it's fake you really have to wonder about them, I mean everyone knows it has a predetermined outcome etc and no wrestling fan i've ever met has tried to state otherwise and yet this is always one of the go to responses non fans have. The biggest PW company has the word entertainment in it's name these days and the show is essentially likened to a live soap opera with added athleticism. Nobody is trying to pretend it is a legit sport no more than that Westeros (from GOTs) is a real place. I mean do these people who highlight that it isn't real genuinly think PW fans believe The Undertaker was an undead zombie who decided to take up wrestling?

leggo

osarusan wrote: »

Both England and Northern Ireland are 1/40 to win their games this weekend.

As soon as I clicked 'post', I thought, "There's going to be one knob who has to try and be clever by bringing up a match with the Faroe Islands or San Marino now..." :rolleyes:

Fratton Fred

entropi wrote: »

It has a majority physical aspect, even has sports in the descriptor of sports entertainment.... By that reasoning I could say that golf and snooker should be kept off sports channels, seeing as they are pastimes (skill-based ones, but pastimes nonetheless)..

Golf and snooker are sports though, they involve games played to a set of rules with no scripting and the best player on the day wins.

Wrestling ( or at least the modern showbusiness thing they call wrestling) is physical and carried out by physically fit people, but so is ballet

Necro

Fratton Fred wrote:

Golf and snooker are sports though, they involve games played to a set of rules with no scripting and the best player on the day wins.

For me they wouldn't be sports more skills. I have no beef with either golf or snooker though so I won't labour that point.

The question I keep putting to people regarding WWE being on sports channels is... Where would you prefer it went ?
Sky Arts? I'm not quite sure the current viewers would be too impressed with having their one (2 maybe?) channels taken up with 5 live hours of wrestling PLUS repeats. In fact I'd say they'd be downright outraged and demanding it was put back on sports!

Put it on MTV/Fox/Sky Atlantic? Again it would take away from the original content produced/bought by said channels. Now, the content may not be in everyone's taste but there's clearly a market for these shows.
Adding WWE to the content would clog up the channel and again probably lead to people complaining as to why it's not on sports.

I don't see the issue. There are plenty of sports channels available these days even outside of sky sports. Sport or not (Not, it's sports entertainment), the sports channels are the most fitting place to put the content despite the protestations of the 'elitists'.

Don't like it? Watch one of the other 7 channels showing something else? Why is this even an issue?

Why am I talking about it at length? :P

HandsomeBob

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

If someone over 25 told me they liked WWE... I'd glance around to see if they had a carer with them tbh.

What?

Dr Bob

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

MMA/UFC fights ain't fake though and that makes all the difference in the world.

WWE is pretend fighting.

It would be like sitting down to watch the Grand Prix of a Sunday and all the drivers just ran around the track making car noises.

Better analogy would be a GP with stunt drivers and some choreographed car crashes and ramp jumps , while on fire.
Its more freestyle stuntman performance art than sport, and half the performance is making the other guys hits look spectacular without getting yourself permanently injured or killed.
.wouldn't be a massive fan but Ive a lot of admiration for the wrestlers.
Also If you want to kill a few hours with a good read , wrestler Mick Foleys autobiography is a fascinating read and damn funny as well.

citytillidie

oneilla wrote: »

The reason that wrestling is on Sky Sports is a sort of quirk of pay TV. In Britain most people for a long time only had terrestrial stations and when Sky came along their pay channels were movies and sport. The first Wrestlemania Sky aired wad actually on one of their movie channels and then later Sky1 aired some second run programmes and the main shows aired on the sport channel.

In the US WWE and other wrestling is on fairly general non-sport channels

It is also on Sports channel in Canada

citytillidie

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Golf and snooker are sports though, they involve games played to a set of rules with no scripting and the best player on the day wins.

Wrestling ( or at least the modern showbusiness thing they call wrestling) is physical and carried out by physically fit people, but so is ballet

Apart from when a snooker player fixes his games

Omackeral

I'd call snooker and darts sports but I wouldn't call the participants athletes. I wouldn't call pro wrestling a sport but I would call the participants athletes.

JP Liz V1

osarusan wrote: »

No issue with it, people can like whatever they like and I won't care.

As long as nobody describes it as sport. That's going too far, and I do start to care then.

Kurt Angle won an Olympic gold medal with a broken freaking neck, oh it is true, it is damn true :P

It is entertainment, no harm in anyone being a fan or a peep

entropi

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Golf and snooker are sports though, they involve games played to a set of rules with no scripting and the best player on the day wins.

Wrestling ( or at least the modern showbusiness thing they call wrestling) is physical and carried out by physically fit people, but so is ballet

The "scripting" that can happen in games and sports would be due to match fixing. A predetermined winner, who stands to gain fame and fortune, alongside the people who took an active part in it. Match fixing in snooker has been as recent as last year.

Wrestling also relies on a defined set of rules, depending on the promotion. The difference is that in wrestling, someone can be seriously inured, their career destroyed by giving or taking a bad move, or in the case of some very unfortunate people, they die. The sporting caliber of people in the ring can be at Olympic and World Champion level, so sporting, it is.

Wrestling fans know its "fake", it is entertainment after all. The problem lies in whether non-fans can accept that we don't mind, and that it's basically an athletic, high risk at times, soap opera, just viewed through a different lens.

The Legend Of Kira

From about 1989 to 2007 I used to watch WWE/ Wrestling on a weekly basis, back in the days when it was WWF & WCW I used to watch both, when WWE went all PG in 2007 I slowly lost interest over time and stopped watching it on a weekly basis, since 2007 I only look at WWE the very odd time on youtube, in the last 10 years I only watched 3 WWE ppv events ( Wrestlemania 31 ) ( Survivor Series 2016 ) + ( Wrestlemania 33 ) all PPV events that ex Wcw wrestlers made an in ring appearance, Sting at WM 31 + Goldberg at the other two Ppv events I referred to, when I looked at the crowd reaction to Roman Reigns raw after this years Wrestlemania at the abuse he got etc, I can,t understand why they book him as a babyface in the spot he,s in given the hostile reaction he gets, back in the early 1990s when Wwf tried to get Lex Luger over with the audience as the next big babyface when they saw it wasn,t working out they knew when it call it quits unlike today with Roman Reigns .

Fratton Fred

entropi wrote: »

The "scripting" that can happen in games and sports would be due to match fixing. A predetermined winner, who stands to gain fame and fortune, alongside the people who took an active part in it. Match fixing in snooker has been as recent as last year.

Yes, but it is against the laws if the game, not an inherent part of it

W

entropi wrote: »

wrestling also relies on a defined set of rules, depending on the promotion. The difference is that in wrestling, someone can be seriously inured, their career destroyed by giving or taking a bad move, or in the case of some very unfortunate people, they die. The sporting caliber of people in the ring can be at Olympic and World Champion level, so sporting, it is.

So kind of like professional dancers, or stuntmen. That doesnt mean Darcy Bussell should be entered for sports personality of the year though.

entropi wrote: »

Wrestling fans know its "fake", it is entertainment after all. The problem lies in whether non-fans can accept that we don't mind, and that it's basically an athletic, high risk at times, soap opera, just viewed through a different lens.

Exactly, it is entertainment, not sport.

bananabread12

A couple of 'roided up blokes oiling themselves up, flexing for each other and then rolling around together.......fuck that.

I've already seen Brokeback Mountain.

gerrybbadd

bananabread12 wrote: »

A couple of 'roided up blokes oiling themselves up, flexing for each other and then rolling around together.......fuck that.

I've already seen Brokeback Mountain.

Another one. No speedos?

bananabread12

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Another one. No speedos?

wtf has my jocks got to do with this?

Tuco88

The Legend Of Kira wrote: »

From about 1989 to 2007 I used to watch WWE/ Wrestling on a weekly basis, back in the days when it was WWF & WCW I used to watch both, when WWE went all PG in 2007 I slowly lost interest over time and stopped watching it on a weekly basis, since 2007 I only look at WWE the very odd time on youtube, in the last 10 years I only watched 3 WWE ppv events ( Wrestlemania 31 ) ( Survivor Series 2016 ) + ( Wrestlemania 33 ) all PPV events that ex Wcw wrestlers made an in ring appearance, Sting at WM 31 + Goldberg at the other two Ppv events I referred to, when I looked at the crowd reaction to Roman Reigns raw after this years Wrestlemania at the abuse he got etc, I can,t understand why they book him as a babyface in the spot he,s in given the hostile reaction he gets, back in the early 1990s when Wwf tried to get Lex Luger over with the audience as the next big babyface when they saw it wasn,t working out they knew when it call it quits unlike today with Roman Reigns .

+1 same for me. When WCW+ECW went the life was sucked out of it. God it was pure **** late OOs killed it for me and getting older.

I keep an eye the odd time on utube, nice to see the Irish gang there now it's utter **** tho.

I'll never forget the likes of Austin vs Bret at WM what a show!

The Montreal screw job. Hogans heel turn (nWo) and HBK starting DX with rude.

Wouldn't watch it now if you paid me.

Cookie_Monster

used to watch it a bit, but it's just too stupid an OTT now-a-days IMO

HandsomeBob

bananabread12 wrote: »

A couple of 'roided up blokes oiling themselves up, flexing for each other and then rolling around together.......fuck that.

I've already seen Brokeback Mountain.

They don't do that in Brokeback Mountain.

Samaris

Can't be bothered with it myself, but each to their own. I'm not particularly interested in watching staged brawling or live-action (dull) Tekkan maybe, given the scanty storylines that tend to go up around big matches. Also not mad on the culture of it - the culture within how the show is made that is, not the culture of those watching it. There seems to have been a few big "that was really not a good idea" moments in terms of "hey this would be a good idea, hold my beer...". It was WWE that did that eejit stunt of having all their fighters fight each other "for real" that ended up with four people having to retire due to injuries, wasn't it?

Fratton Fred

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

used to watch it a bit, but it's just too stupid an OTT now-a-days IMO

Pro Kabaddi is where its at now, far more entertaining.

And downright ****ing bonkers to boot:D

WinnyThePoo

Samaris wrote: »

Can't be bothered with it myself, but each to their own. I'm not particularly interested in watching staged brawling or live-action (dull) Tekkan maybe, given the scanty storylines that tend to go up around big matches. Also not mad on the culture of it - the culture within how the show is made that is, not the culture of those watching it. There seems to have been a few big "that was really not a good idea" moments in terms of "hey this would be a good idea, hold my beer...". It was WWE that did that eejit stunt of having all their fighters fight each other "for real" that ended up with four people having to retire due to injuries, wasn't it?

I think that was a vince russo idea, an idiot who somehow got on wwf creative team and then went over to wcw and destroyed them.

You don't have real fighting on a pro wrestling show. You don't promote a shoot fight on a pro wrestling either. This is what that eejit did.

Wrestling ia fascinating to me because of the obscurity of it all. Back stage politics etc.

Relikk

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Pro Kabaddi is where its at now, far more entertaining.

And downright ****ing bonkers to boot:D

It was great when Channel 4 used to show that late on Friday or Saturday nights (not sure which) in the late 90's.

DEFTLEFTHAND

WinnyThePoo wrote: »

I think that was a vince russo idea, an idiot who somehow got on wwf creative team and then went over to wcw and destroyed them.

You don't have real fighting on a pro wrestling show. You don't promote a shoot fight on a pro wrestling either. This is what that eejit did.

Wrestling ia fascinating to me because of the obscurity of it all. Back stage politics etc.

This is the bit which is hard to explain to none fans.

"Smart mark" fans love to speculate on the real life backstage goings on, the politics, the infighting, the creative direction, booking decisions (who wins, who loses)

It's fascinating to study from a business perspective. It's all about putting asses in seats and generating as much revenue as possible. If you put your World Title on a guy who's not over with the audience then this can have an adverse impact on revenues across the board.

It's a cutthroat world. Talent have to connect with the people and draw money.