Re: fake wrestling fake figure skating.

On Sun, 30 Oct 2005 08:38:30 -0800, Dan Clore
<clore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>low key wrote:
>> "Keith Morrison" <keithm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>> message news:3fv5m1t4tio6fjflfcsq4nslmlr00012d0@xxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>>Contrary to popular opinion the modern wrestling fan over the age of 10 is
>>>well aware that what they're watching is fake. It's the willing
>>>suspension
>>>of disbelief.
>>
>> I don't what the stats would be - I tend to agree most adults probably do
>> realize wrestling is staged. But around the time of Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the
>> Giant [late 80's?] I got a 20-something co-worker angry at me when - after
>> he spent a great deal of time pondering who would win - I informed him that
>> wrestling was fake.
>
>That's amusing. A&E's Biography show did Andre the Giant,
>and they explained that while the fight was fixed for Hulk
>Hogan to win, Hogan was worried that Andre would go ahead
>and beat him anyway. But Andre felt that he was getting old
>and ready to retire, and that he should finally get beaten
>by somebody (he had previously been undefeated). They also
>had a show on the general history of professional wrestling.
>It said that the original motivation for fixing the outcome
>was to keep the audience entertained--sometimes matches went
>on for hours before someone got pinned for the count.


There are several well-documented cases of a wrestler "going into
business for himself" and either not cooperating to make his opponent
look bad (Brody vs Luger), (Regal vs Goldberg) or actually upsetting
the script of the match and "shooting" on his oopponent. This was
always a concern with Andre who was given to showing up drunk and was
legitimately tough enough to pretty much destroy anyone he chose in
the ring. He pretty much behaved himself in teh US bit there were a
couple of incidents in Japan where the outcome was so bad as a result
of Andre's non-cooperation that crowds almost rioted.
The most famous example of a wrestler "shooting" is probably when
third-tier worker Akira Maeda launched a roundhouse against top star
Ricky Choshu shattering his cheekbone. Maeda had planned this for
several weeks (or months) and used the cowardly stunt to open a new
promotion that was "real" wrestling. The Japanese people bought it
hook, line, and sinker and by running infrequent closed-circuit shows,
Maeda and his backers made a shitload of money and may have actually
helped start the interest in legitimate combat sports.


Cheers,

John
.

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