From: hekunze@jeeves.waterloo.edu (Herb Kunze)
Subject: Re: More Wrestlemania Comments
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 18:43:37 GMT

In article <1992Apr8.223053.12668@physics.ucla.edu>, price@uclapp.physics.ucla.edu (John Price) writes:
> Yup, marks like the Whackers.  I know, because I'm a mark.  
> 
> Yes, Herb, I like them too.  Sue me.  What can I say?  

  There should be a rehab clinic to get Sheepwhacker fans back on the
  straight and narrow.  

> Can they wrestle?  No, of course not.  Just because I'm a mark doesn't make 
> me stupid.  But they're damned fun to watch.  They are IMHO by far the best 
> comedic team in wrestling today; perhaps of all time.  Compare them, for 
> instance, to the Ding Dongs...?

  Yes, comedy has a small place in pro-wrestling.  But it shouldn't
  be the underlying gimmick for a wrestler or wrestlers.  Things like
  the Sheepwhackers or Ding Dongs characters are things we could do
  without.  Fans may have been conditioned to expect this stupid type
  of humour from pro-wrestling, but pro-wrestling thrived without it,
  and could do so again.  In the end, it just hurts the credibility
  of all the other wrestlers.

  Even little things, like Curt Hennig doing a triple twist, backward
  half-somersault bump when he takes a punch are cute if they happen
  once in a while, but when they become the rule, like late in Curt's
  career where all did was put on a bump show, it hurts everybody's
  credibility. 
  
> I think they're being used a lot more effectively in the WWF than they were 
> in the then-NWA, where they were billed as a power team.  Jim Ross kept 
> telling us how they would use mostly "high-impact maneuvers" to wear out 
> their opponents.  Yeah, right.

  They'd be used even more effectively now in WCW -- they're not being
  used.  They had their place in wrestling and it's right down there
  at the bottom of the ladder along with Sid, UW, et. al. 

> What a lot of people in this newsgroup don't understand, I think, is how 
> marks (at least *smart* marks) watch wrestling.  
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  This is an oxymoron.

> workrate is important, but not all-important.  It takes a back seat to 
> things like believability, angles, and yes, humor.  

  Workrate and wrestling ability is what gives the sport aspect of
  pro-wrestling it's credibility.  Angles and interviews are helpful
  for getting the fans out to watch the show.  Humour can be used
  occasionally to spice up the mix.  

  I can't see how "wrestlers" like the Sheepwhackers, Sid, UW, etc.,
  help increase wrestling's believability.

> Believability refers to whether the marks can buy what's happening in the 
> ring.  Currently, we've been conditioned to believe that a big guy will 
> almost always beat the tar out of a little guy.  Is this true?  Herb tells 
> us without hesitation that it isn't, and I tend to believe him, but it 
> hasn't really been tested IMHO.

  Wrestling that is booked based on ability and workrate has got to have
  more believability than wrestling that ignores these quantities.  In
  the old days, that is, pre-Hulkamania, wouldn't you say that wrestling
  had more believability?  Nowadays, only the youngest and most-ignorant
  marks don't know that it's a booked sport.  If you can read the paper
  or watch Entertainment Tonight, you know that the WWF has admitted
  that match outcomes are predetermined and that wrestlers don't try
  to hurt each other.  That improves believability? 

  In the old days, we had big guys like Ernie Ladd, who played monster 
  heels.  But Ernie was smart enough to realize what his role in the
  sport was.  He was Goliath, and he'd have to end up looking at the
  lights for David at some point in the feud.  Within bounds, the
  bigger, lesser-skilled guy should end up doing the job in the feud
  with the smaller, more-skilled guy.  We wouldn't make Andre job
  for Riger, but hopefully we'd have the brains not to book the
  match.

> Let's just say that the mark needs a reason to believe that the two 
> guys in the ring really hate each other; 

  This boils down to the fact that North American wrestling is booked
  very strongly with the heel-face structure in mind.  If we mixed this
  up more frequently (instead of just the occasional UW-Hogan, 
  Hart-Piper, or Riger-Pillman match), the need for angles would 
  decline a little.  

> When it comes to humor, the WWF has it all over the WCW.  When I watch the 
> Whiff, I look mostly to the interviews, and the pre- and post-match 
> activities.  That's because there isn't a whole lot of wrestling worth 
> watching. 
> The WWF *does* have good interviews, however.  By "good", I mean "fun to 
> watch".  The LOD (pronounced, of course, "LAWHD") interview at WM is an 
> example.  No one does an interview as well as Hawk.  And yes, I think it 
> was a good idea to bring Ellering back as well.

  And interviews are important.  For WrestleMania, though, that was the
  highlight of the show.  None of the matches were memorable.  No wrestling
  stayed in my mind after the show.  I remembered Paul Ellering's return,
  and his Ultimate Warrior like interview, you know: "I have returned from
  the darkness of the past of moons under the sun of the April showers
  bring May flowers and wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?", Flair's
  interviews, the UW's record breaking run-in, and Flair kissing Liz.
  Ask me about the wrestling in the main event(s), and I couldn't answer
  a question.
  
> The point is that watch wrestling because it's *fun*.  I *enjoy* it.  Sure, 
> workrate helps, but without all the other stuff the WWF puts into the show, 
> it would be a lot more boring.  Picture a WCW show with only Jim Ross 
> giving commentary.  That's why the WWF has Monsoon with Heenan - Monsoon 
> alone would be just as bad.

  This is a question of priorities.  Do you want to have fun watching
  wrestlers' inaction or do you want to watch wrestlers in action?
  Because the actual wrestling in the WCW product is far superior on
  average than the WWF, I would easily choose it over the WWF.  Sure
  I wish Jim Ross didn't remind me that every wrestler has a football
  history, but other than that I have no problems with him.  

  I guess this attitude comes from watching videos of matches where
  you can't understand the commentary and there are relatively few
  angles.  Lo and behold, the wrestling is so good that it doesn't
  matter.

                                                        Herb...