Hooker - 2014-02-19
The backstory, to those that don't follow pro wrestling:
There is a wrestler named Daniel Bryan (he wrestled for ten years independently under his real name, Bryan Danielson, and became the indy's most beloved wrestler) who has the strongest fan support at shows of anyone since "Stone Cold" Steve Austin (which is to say, not as much as Austin, but anyone else since). However, wrestling has always been about "stars" and people who have "the look." The Rock, for instance, was tapped on his debut to be a star one day. Daniel Bryan, however, looks totally unremarkable. So the WWE, despite his astonishing popularity, has seemed to steadfastly refuse to get behind him and instead push their "the look" wrestlers (including the shamelessly returning-because-he-has-a-movie-coming-out Batista) even harder down the fan's throats. Fan anger boiled over at this show.
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Hooker - 2014-02-20 Man, Xenocide, you have no idea. The DPRK would roll their eyes at the constantly embarrassing propaganda that is the WWE commentators.
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Xenocide - 2014-02-20 I have little doubt that WWE commentators are kept on even tighter leashes than the wrestlers themselves, with more talking point restrictions than a Fox News anchor.
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Cena_mark  - 2014-02-19
Ungrateful bastards. They have the two greatest wrestlers of this era going at it and they have the gall to give it boring chants. The only thing awful about that match was that Cena lost.
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-19 Or perhaps you mean Shelly Martinez and Amy Dumas? Yumyum!
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Cena_mark - 2014-02-19 Oh, I'm sorry. A 12 time world champ vs a 14 time world champ. I had no Idea that was such a terrible thing.
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Yellow Lantern - 2014-02-19 Cena/Orton is a perfectly technically sound match, but it has been done so many times in the past ~10 years that it's almost impossible to care about it.
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Cena_mark - 2014-02-19 The Unified Championship was in the balance. How could anyone not care about that?
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oddeye - 2014-02-19 I get that you might not like who is the champ or who is wrestling or whatnot but aren't the lineups posted for big events a month or so ahead of time? Why spend all that time and money to go to live show just to yell a bunch of bullshit about how someone isn't getting pushed when a much better option would be to just not give the wwe your money or whatever? Sure if the match is shit and you spent your paycheck then go ahead but give the guys who are trying to entertain you a chance motherfuckos
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Hugo Gorilla - 2014-02-19 Apparently most of this year's Royal Rumble audience didn't.
Also, "why would they come to our concert jus to boo us?"
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GQ - 2014-02-20 Well, it's just that Cena/Orton has kinda been done to death, even under the short period of the past few months. You can only see the same pairing SO many times without tuning it out. And don't you dare say anyone REALLY wanted Batista to win the Rumble
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oddeye - 2014-02-20 I like Batista, he was on an episode of aussie soap "Neighbors", it was pretty sweet.
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oddeye - 2014-02-20 Fuck my auto-complete spellchecker. aussie soap "Neighbours"
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Hooker - 2014-02-20 Well, wrestling audiences go to wrestling shows for a variety of reasons, one of which is to see wrestling. That needs to be understood from the outset. Another reason is to cheer the things they like and boo the things they don't, and the audience in Pittsburgh (normally on the quieter side of American sports cities) certainly got their money's worth in booing. I, for instance, would have loved to be in attendance for this show.
It's also important to know that, really, the audience only shit on two specific things: The Orton-Cena match and the Rumble match once the 30th man was revealed to not be Daniel Bryan, confirming that he wouldn't be in the Royal Rumble (the participants of which are not announced ahead of time and part of the appeal of the match is to see who will show up as a participant). There were five matches on the show including the Rumble, and if you divide it by the length, the crowd shit on about 1.1 of the matches.
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Hooker - 2014-02-20 Another thing that needs to be understood is that the WWE has been losing fans for the past 14 years and especially losing fans to non-Monday Night RAW or PPV events. Smackdown, once a premiere show to rival RAW, has seen attendance in the 2-4k range at times (they book 18k basketball/hockey arenas for those shows). Their non-televised shows do even worse. So, fans have, in fact, stopped paying money for the WWE's stuff.
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-20 It just hasn't been the same since they did away with the Bra and Panties matches.
And oddeye, really? BOOtista was on Neighbours? Well, looks like it's Home and Away for me from now on.
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CornOnTheCabre - 2014-02-20 Two important things to keep in mind when asking "why wrestling fans waste their time supporting a product they hate" is A) there is a massive, undeniable monopoly in the artform and B) WWE force their employees to take on a bullshit status as independent contractors while being contractually forbidden to go or work anywhere else.
The WWE won the Monday Night Wars, but that doesn't mean people stopped liking pro wrestling, and it definitely didn't mean that they didn't want to stop supporting individual wrestlers who break their necks trying to please part of the audience that their workplace doesn't necessarily care about too much.
It's tempting to say things like "well, then support independent wrestling organizations" -- which I was initially doing for awhile, but the problem is that truly admiring the work of a pro wrestler and actually wanting them to collect weakass paychecks from high school gyms, Elks lodges and unstable promotions for the rest of their life don't really go hand in hand. the problem is that the "security" for this profession tops out at the WWE, and the WWE is only traditionally interested in a very specific body type (and yes, usually skin color) for a sustained career. unless that talent can show they can really draw an audience, in no uncertain terms.
So, I guess the easiest thing to say is that jaded pro wrestling fans show up because they care about pro wrestling, and pro wrestlers, not just a corporate teat. that can translate to some shaming moments for some genuinely talented wrestlers like Sheamus or Orton or Cena, but the given is that those wrestlers are going to be successful and financially secure no matter what -- it's the Daniel Bryans and CM Punks and Emmas that really need the fan support, whether it be through buying merch or cheering appropriately.
these kind of fans get a lot of shit for "going into business for themselves," but I think that's wrongheaded. that's just something people say when they're angry the fans aren't going into business for Vince McMahon.
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Hooker - 2014-02-21 Wow. Emma snuck right in there, huh?
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CornOnTheCabre - 2014-02-21 haw, just doing my part. She's actually a really solid wrestler if you saw her on NXT, even if she's got the Santino albatross on her neck and they are pushing the dance a little bit too hard. also, with the women's division as it is, ANY talent is welcome.
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lieutenant halfabeef - 2014-02-19
"The actual Ric Flair. Not animated." Hehe!
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Scrimmjob - 2014-02-20
the announcer: "It's as if he knows what Cena's going to before he does it."
You don't say?
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infinite zest - 2014-02-20
I stopped watching WWF back in the Ultimate Warrior days, but I still have great respect for the wrestlers' physical prowess, stage presence and the fans' enthusiasm: it looks like a lot more fun than a night at the Opera.
That being said, you ARE watching something that's closer to a movie or Opera than you are, say, a football game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the crowd swings one way, potentially leaving unhappy (say, if they killed off your favorite character in a movie or something,) they can't call it in from the sides and change the outcome of a match, can they?
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Hooker - 2014-02-20
They call audibles ALL the time. For instance, on PPVs, they have a strict time limit; the PPV provider will just cut the show if it goes over (as has happened before: see WCW Halloween Havoc 1999). To keep within the time limits, since the wrestlers are already keeping track of quite a few things during a match, the referees have earpieces that receive updates from the back and effectively act (among other things) as a direct communication to the wrestlers with the writers during the show. It was astonishing to people that follow wrestling closely that the WWE did NOT scratch someone and send Daniel Bryan out.
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Hooker - 2014-02-20 Meant to be a reply to zest, of course.
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-20
In all seriousness, I do feel kinda sorry for Randy Orton. It's not his fault the WWE writers don't know who to push.
Unless it _IS_ his fault, in which case, fuck him!
Also, as much as it sucked that they kept Daniel Bryan out of the Royal Rumble, any man who boos Rey Mysterio is a fool and a coward.
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Hooker - 2014-02-20 John Cena spends his free time visiting dying children while Randy Orton shits in women's bags if they don't know who he is and the fans boo them both equally. I have a lot less sympathy for Orton.
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blue vein steel - 2014-02-20
Yeah, I kind of feel bad for Cena, despite everything because he does seem like a genuinely good guy and he works hard, even if he is the ultimate company man. Ortan is also a company man and he works hard, but is almost certainly a piece of shit, non kefabe. Most likely giving HHH too much credit, but there is always the chance that he knows that wwe is failing and needs something huge, so all this sandbagging of Bryan may just be a really long term work for a big PPV payoff.
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-20 You could be right. I was reading some news articles about this, and it looks like Daniel Bryan has been really pushing the whole social media/ fan activism angle. That could just be him doing his own thing, but the modern WWE does love it's "social media", so maybe they're gambling on some crazy viral hype campaign to drive enthusiasm for the next PPV?
I've got to admit, the shit way they've been handling their brand as of late has gotten _me_ to pay attention to the WWE for the first time in years, so who knows, maybe this IS what they're doing, and it's working?
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-20
Does Orton really shit in women's bags?! I honestly don't know too much about him beyond the fact that he's boring and his matches are nearly unwatchable. He joined around the time I stopped watching, and was only in a few of the Yukes games before those became unplayable bad, too.
As for Cena, he is a nice guy, I'll give him that, but he's a big boy and he's gotten worse shit from smarks before. He's a consummate professional, and stuff like this seems to roll right off his back. But Orton, gosh, that poor man looked close to tears!
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-20 Woops, reply to Hooker.
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Hooker - 2014-02-21 The WWE brought in a glamour model to be a wrestler (as they do) named Rochelle Loewen. When she met Randy Orton, she didn't know who he was. Offended by this, Orton then shit in her bag. She soon left the company. Technically the only bag that we know for sure he did that with, but by no means the only asshole thing he's done.
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EvilHomer - 2014-02-21 Wow, I just read an interview with that diva about the bag incident (she claims it was just lotion, not shit, BUT SHE COULD BE LYING TO PROTECT THE WWE) and Randy Orton is one seriously deranged asshole.
http://www.wrestleview.com/news2005/1118954026.shtml
You're right, I retract my previous empathy for Orton. I'm glad he was brought to tears by an arena full of people who hate him, and I hope maybe he can learn and grow from this experience.
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Jet Bin Fever - 2014-02-24
I like these botchamania videos a lot, but I would never ever ever watch a full puroresu match. It's a shame too, because I loved it as a kid.
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