I'm a pro wrestling fan.
There I said it, all you cute girls can leave now. I'll wait
Ok there, that being said I'm a wrestling fan and have been for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories all involve WWF action and men like the Ultimate Warrior, Papa Shango, and the Bushwhackers to name a few.
So Imagine my surprise when I saw analogies in the film Outfoxed as I did with the current affair of professional wrestling.
The owner of the WWE Vince McMahon is a marketing genius. Wrestlers like Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin catched the public eye and held the WWE on top of the ratings for periods of time. The interesting thing is Vince mcMahon hates wrestling
He hates the idea of professional wrestling.
To him, it is sports entertainment. Sports Entertainment was a term coined by him as a way to appeal to a mass audience. With professional wrestling comes the usual connontations of redneck hillbillies yelling at two muscleheads rolling around in the ring
He created a way to spin professional wrestling into a whole different avenue. Sports Entertainment doesn't carry such a stigma and it seems to have worked in some strange way.
I mean...potential Oscar winner Mickey Rourke is scheduled for a match at Wrestlemania.
Who can argue with that
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OMG. Professional back in late 80's and early 90's is my favorite! I was a big WWF girl. I knew everything and everyone. Wrestling is a big deal, I think people forget that. Ok, wrestling, sports entertainment. Whatever you want to call it. There is stil a market for it, and I don't really think that's ever going to change. As far as Ed McMahon is concerned, dude know what he's doing.
ReplyDeleteAhh, I used to be a huge fan of WWF, too! My Uncle really got me and my younger brother to follow it for a couple of years back in the day. Vince McMahon, like you said, really is a marketing genius. If the WWF really was just professional wrestling rather than the "sports entertainment" that McMahon created, I probably would not have watched at all. For me, about 75% of the entertainment was all of the dramatic storylines, which may have been ridiculous, but made for great TV that kept me coming back each week.
ReplyDeleteMy friend Phil has a chapter in an anthology on wrestling from Duke University Press called STEEL CHAIR TO THE HEAD. You might be able to get it through interlibrary loan, if we don't have a copy in our library.
ReplyDeleteAlso, do you know Jared Ganem? He is a recent BSC/Comm Studies grad, now in Florida trying to break in w/ the WWE. I saw him fight on cable this fall!
Ben,
ReplyDeleteWe've had many a disscussion on our feeling on the current state of WWE and how we don't watch wrestling anymore. We also talk about the Indy wrestling movement. You and I are major fans of Chikara and I feel it is the perfect combination of the real life cartoon characters we grew up with and the competitive action we wanted to see.
I hope that Vinnie Mac, a man i see as a media genius, fantastic story teller and a hell of an actor will some day bring the action in the ring back to the fore front. Hopefully with him also becoming a play by play man again. (BBBBIIIGGGG Back Body Drop)Until then I will continue to love the WWE in private and hope that when i tell people they do not launch into a rant about how athletic skills in a predetermined competeion is fake and how Chris Benoit is a murderer.
Wrestling is escape from boredom, and I'm glad that I am not alone in watching and loving WRESTLING as we watch sports entertainment.
Have you seen the movie the wrestler with Micky Rourke? It's about his life as a professional wrestler and that is all he knows- and as time goes on and you get older you can't just find another passion, he decides he's not through until his fans tell him he's through.
ReplyDeleteYou should check it out, you might like it (: