BarryOVega Posted July 3 Posted July 3 13 hours ago, garynysmon said: What I find funny is fans who start parroting wrestlers about how much they “hate the dirt sheets”. I can understand why a wrestler would hate their existence back in the day, but for a fan to say that?! Mate, if it wasn’t for those I’d still be pondering why the Big Boss Man and El Matador stopped wrestling on WWF Superstars in 1993. On that note I remember my mum buying me what I assume was PWI in late ‘94 and my mind being blown that Bossman was in WCW under a different name, probably the moment I realised all these characters on the telly might not be on the level That and the last year at primary school a lad saying it was all fake except the finishing moves are real, still don’t understand the logic of that one to this day Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 Just now, BarryOVega said: That and the last year at primary school a lad saying it was all fake except the finishing moves are real, still don’t understand the logic of that one to this day I know we've had a few threads about nonsense people said or believed at school, but I love shit like this. Kids figuring out that it's not quite real, but not being able to fully get their heads around it and arriving at bonkers conclusions about which bits are real or how it works is brilliant. I remember kids at secondary school insisting that it's all fake except ECW was real. It's kind of like how the question I've probably been asked the most when my involvement in wrestling has come up at work is, "how do they decide who wins?". Because once you learn it's not real, yeah, I guess that is the first question, but once you've spent decades immersed in this stuff it feels so detached from how we think about wrestling. Quote
Paid Members Lorne Malvo Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 15 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I remember kids at secondary school insisting that it's all fake except ECW was real. This was a common one around these parts. I've told this story before but it reminds me of when my brother told me all of it was fake, except the time they held a behind closed doors Brawl for All-esque fighting tournament in the WWF in 2001 which was won by Raven, so actually he was the hardest and best wrestler on the roster. I still don't know if my brother was on the wind-up or if he had heard this elsewhere and actually believed it, but fucking Raven?! At least try to make it believable. Quote
Members SuperBacon Posted July 3 Members Posted July 3 (edited) I was always equally disgusted and fascinated by the people who wrote into Powerslam with questions like "What is Shawn Michaels real name?" and the amount of people who wanted to know how many wrestlers enjoyed a tab (actually think Shawn did didn't he?) Because I did want to know all of this, but I didn't at the same time. That magazine, Wrestling With Shadows and Beyond The Mat were the biggest kayfabe killers ever. Was no turning back from there. Edited July 3 by SuperBacon Quote
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 3 Awards Moderator Posted July 3 50 minutes ago, BomberPat said: I know we've had a few threads about nonsense people said or believed at school, but I love shit like this. Kids figuring out that it's not quite real, but not being able to fully get their heads around it and arriving at bonkers conclusions about which bits are real or how it works is brilliant. I remember kids at secondary school insisting that it's all fake except ECW was real. The one I had was it's all fake, except for Ken Shamrock and The Undertaker, who hit their opponents for real. I remember being told this in 2001, so it was an odd pair of choices. Undertaker was the American Badass but hadn't gone all "I'm proper MMA me" yet, although he had just won the Hardcore Title. Shamrock I only knew from an old sticker book and the first SmackDown game, he hadn't been on TV since before I'd started watching, so why he came up I've got no idea. My favourite at the time was The Hurricane so it wasn't like I was hankering for realistic strike-and-submit based wrestling. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 Similarly, I missed Ken Shamrock's entire WWF run, and before I started watching older shows, I only knew him from the games, yet he was a constant nexus of playground rumours - he was loads of kids' favourite wrestler even long after he'd gone, and it seemed like every other week there was a kid adamant that he was definitely coming back on RAW next week, especially after Kurt Angle started doing the Ankle Lock. There was probably a fair bit of "this guy's definitely doing it for real, though" too. Quote
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 My stepğdad was always convinced it was real, possibly from the time his brother in law spent around the World Of Sport types bakx in the 70s and how legit they wanted to come across. I remember we were watching I think it was the 2000 Royal Rumble on Channel 4, and whenever one of the bigger lads was eliminated he'd complain about how it's fixed. My ex's uncle was the same. It had to have been some wilful ignorance. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 it's a bit of a sliding scale thing, I doubt my Grandad ever believed old British wrestling was real, but he definitely thought it was more real than the WWF. He was the big World of Sport fan in the family, but had no time for the WWF, and every time there's a long promo segment on a show I always hear his voice asking, "do they ever actually wrestle?", which was his regular as clockwork criticism if he ever saw any American wrestling. I remember when I met Mark Rocco, feeling sad that Grandad wasn't around any more for me to tell him about it, but then cheered myself up a bit by realising that he'd have been very disappointed that I went out of my way to meet one of the baddies. There's definitely something about the difference between a fix and a work, or fixed and fake. I think a lot of people for a long time convinced themselves that British wrestling was fixed, in that it was ostensibly on the level but unscrupulous people had fixed the individual fights the same way you'd fix a boxing match, while American wrestling was seen by the same audience as having been outright faked and all for show from the beginning. It's an interesting distinction. A couple of years ago I saw the Harlem Globetrotters, which is maybe the closest analogue to this stuff in another sport. The way I understand how their games work is that the Washington Generals are legitimately playing basketball, but the agreement is that they don't interfere with any of the Globetrotters' gimmicks or bits of business along the way, and that even though they're ostensibly still playing to win, they obviously understand that it's not what they're there to do. Quote
Members SuperBacon Posted July 3 Members Posted July 3 41 minutes ago, BomberPat said: Washington Generals are legitimately playing basketball Krusty was right to bet on them. Quote
Paid Members Jazzy G Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 The other sport that apparently involves ladder spots. Quote
King Mal the Glorious Posted July 3 Posted July 3 7 hours ago, BomberPat said: I remember kids at secondary school insisting that it's all fake except ECW was real. My dad once said this to me, during the brief period ECW was on Bravo(?) back in the day. His reasoning seemed to be that Sandman smoked tabs, which they'd never let a "fake" wrestler do. Quote
Paid Members garynysmon Posted July 3 Paid Members Posted July 3 (edited) While I can’t be 100% sure he actually meant it, I tend to think my taid (grandfather) believed it was legit combat until the day he died in 2001. Watching wrestling with him was way more fun and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it in the same way since, which may explain my ‘its gone to the dogs since the attitude era ended’ demeanour. He was a farmer and a chapel man from the old Welsh methodist tradition, but would always argue back if anyone brought up with him that it was a work. And while World of Sport was his true love, he’d happily watch the American stuff on VHS tapes I brought over to their non-Sky TV farmhouse through the 90’s. I’m gutted the wrestling channel or even youtube weren’t around back then as he’d have adored to watch all the WOS stuff again. The closest we ever got was that short-lived Sky ‘Classic Wrestling’ series with Jeff Stelling that I managed to tape some episodes of. He was always supportive of the fan favourites without fail, but I always remember he had a grudging respect for “Ted BiDiase” and Rick Martel for being such great wrestlers despite being heels. But he never had a sense of timelines or paid much attention to the commentary etc (tbh his English was only borderline fluent), so every wrestler was set in stone forever, i.e they were a face or heel in perpetuity. No turns ever. So by the time I was into my late teens I purposely used to avoid bringing over tapes if they featured Hulk Hogan being a massive heel in the nWo etc as that would have just meant too much explaining. He bloody loved Jacqueline getting her baps out at that UK PPV mind… Edited July 3 by garynysmon Quote
Chili Posted July 3 Posted July 3 3 hours ago, garynysmon said: While I can’t be 100% sure he actually meant it, I tend to think my taid (grandfather) believed it was legit combat until the day he died in 2001. Watching wrestling with him was way more fun and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed it in the same way since, which may explain my ‘its gone to the dogs since the attitude era ended’ demeanour. He was a farmer and a chapel man from the old Welsh methodist tradition, but would always argue back if anyone brought up with him that it was a work. And while World of Sport was his true love, he’d happily watch the American stuff on VHS tapes I brought over to their non-Sky TV farmhouse through the 90’s. I’m gutted the wrestling channel or even youtube weren’t around back then as he’d have adored to watch all the WOS stuff again. The closest we ever got was that short-lived Sky ‘Classic Wrestling’ series with Jeff Stelling that I managed to tape some episodes of. He was always supportive of the fan favourites without fail, but I always remember he had a grudging respect for “Ted BiDiase” and Rick Martel for being such great wrestlers despite being heels. But he never had a sense of timelines or paid much attention to the commentary etc (tbh his English was only borderline fluent), so every wrestler was set in stone forever, i.e they were a face or heel in perpetuity. No turns ever. So by the time I was into my late teens I purposely used to avoid bringing over tapes if they featured Hulk Hogan being a massive heel in the nWo etc as that would have just meant too much explaining. He bloody loved Jacqueline getting her baps out at that UK PPV mind… Really nice post with an absolutely out of nowhere finish, lovely stuff. Quote
Chico Torres Posted July 3 Posted July 3 3 hours ago, garynysmon said: He was a farmer and a chapel man from the old Welsh methodist tradition, He bloody loved Jacqueline getting her baps out at that UK PPV mind… Pure poetry. To paraphrase Mean Gene at Wrestlemania 6, Dylan Thomas couldn’t have said it better Quote
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