Carnies to nerds - when, why and how?

[gr1990]

I was just thinking about how the sort of person who becomes a wrestler has by and large changed over the past 20 years. Up until the mid-90s or so, wrestlers seemed to usually be hard-living, often rather mean-spirited, ritualistic, confrontational people with a very primal, no-frills approach to life. Conversations about comic books and video games in the locker room were probably few and far between. If you were into that sort of stuff, you probably kept quiet about it for fear of being mocked. You talked about beer and ring rats and if you seemed too happy to be there they'd mock you and call you a mark.

Today, the average wrestler seems to be a relatively mild-mannered sort of person often with numerous nerdy interests, and they generally seem to behave themselves outside of the ring. People are very open about how they're doing their dream job and 'marking out' doesn't seem as frowned upon as it used to be. So many interviews with wrestlers who came into the business during the changeover talk about how the locker room mentality is a lot more open-minded and supportive today, and how everyone just talks about comics and generally gets along, whereas when they were starting out the veterans wouldn't even speak to them until they proved themselves and a million different carny ways and they never felt able to open up to anyone about anything.

What changed? Did wrestling just become a niche, nerdy interest over time and so the people who became wrestlers began reflecting that? Did kayfabe's gradual death mean that wrestlers became less wary of who they let enter their little world? Not saying everyone who wrestled in the 90s and earlier was a scumbag, far from it, or that every wrestler today is a saint, but there's been a definite change in mentality over the years and I've never quite been able to pinpoint what caused it.

[PsychoGoatee]

We're very acquainted with the gossip and backstage stories from people in wrestling. But in general, this could just be a reflection of how things have changed in general over decades, not just the wrestling biz.

Nerd culture and whatnot is much more mainstream these days, tough guy bullying shenanigans is more frowned upon. Granted that's still been an issue with the recent developmental stuff we heard about. But in a nutshell, I think this just reflects how things have evolved over time. For wrestling in particular, like you said moving away from kayfabe etc and just newer generations of people coming in led to it having a different atmosphere today.

[gr1990]

Apr 25, 2015 1:38:28 GMT -5 PsychoGoatee said:

We're very acquainted with the gossip and backstage stories from people in wrestling. But in general, this could just be a reflection of how things have changed in general over decades, not just the wrestling biz.

Nerd culture and whatnot is much more mainstream these days, tough guy bullying shenanigans is more frowned upon. Granted that's still been an issue with the recent developmental stuff we heard about. But in a nutshell, I think this just reflects how things have evolved over time. For wrestling in particular, like you said moving away from kayfabe etc and just newer generations of people coming in led to it having a different atmosphere today.

Good point, a lot of it probably is societal, 'they don't make men like they used to' and all that, but I bet there's a lot of the rituals, hazing and misbehaviour still going on in 'real' sports locker rooms, particularly below the top level. Not to pigeon-hole people into nerds and jocks and whatever, but I think the fact that wrestling these days seems to largely draw in the misfits, the people with no amateur or professional sporting background, has probably changed the environment.

In the mid-2000s, when society's values weren't too different to now, carny lunacy was still running rampant in WWE for instance, but back then you still had a load of the old-school JBL/Bob Holly types around, plus plenty of legitimate athletes from other sports. These days, guys who started on the indys in the past 15 years outnumber the ex-football players and the pre-millennium generation, and the crazy stories have all but stopped. WWE putting a tighter rein on such things in the PG era probably contributes to that somewhat, but you can just tell from hearing today's talent talk that they're not the same sort of people that populated the business in decades past.

[Futureraven: Beelzebruv]

Apr 25, 2015 3:59:26 GMT -5 gr1990 said:

Apr 25, 2015 1:38:28 GMT -5 PsychoGoatee said:

We're very acquainted with the gossip and backstage stories from people in wrestling. But in general, this could just be a reflection of how things have changed in general over decades, not just the wrestling biz.

Nerd culture and whatnot is much more mainstream these days, tough guy bullying shenanigans is more frowned upon. Granted that's still been an issue with the recent developmental stuff we heard about. But in a nutshell, I think this just reflects how things have evolved over time. For wrestling in particular, like you said moving away from kayfabe etc and just newer generations of people coming in led to it having a different atmosphere today.

Good point, a lot of it probably is societal, 'they don't make men like they used to' and all that, but I bet there's a lot of the rituals, hazing and misbehaviour still going on in 'real' sports locker rooms, particularly below the top level. Not to pigeon-hole people into nerds and jocks and whatever, but I think the fact that wrestling these days seems to largely draw in the misfits, the people with no amateur or professional sporting background, has probably changed the environment.

In the mid-2000s, when society's values weren't too different to now, carny lunacy was still running rampant in WWE for instance, but back then you still had a load of the old-school JBL/Bob Holly types around, plus plenty of legitimate athletes from other sports. These days, guys who started on the indys in the past 15 years outnumber the ex-football players and the pre-millennium generation, and the crazy stories have all but stopped. WWE putting a tighter rein on such things in the PG era probably contributes to that somewhat, but you can just tell from hearing today's talent talk that they're not the same sort of people that populated the business in decades past.

I think the environment changes quicker in wresting. As you say, the old school wrestlers kind of disappear at the end of their careers. In sports, the older guys become coaches and trainers, or existing coaches stay on for years in positions of power and can keep those practices going.

In Wrestling, while those guys do train the young guys, because you go around different companies, there's less of a structure so the current guys in the locker room dictates the environment rather than the coaches they had.

[Deleted]

All a matter of your environment. Today's 30 year old was born in 1985, which would be around the era of a second-or-third generation video game player. Their parents probably went to arcades, owned an Atari or Intellivision and would bump-up to a Nintendo soon.

The boom of comic & sports card collecting and the shops that opened due to this new/rediscovered obsession? They would have been 5-7 years old. Monday Night Wars, 10. Attitude Era, 12-13. Mick Foley's book, 14-15.

Just bringing things to light about this generation.

[Amazing Kitsune]

I think you're possibly underestimating how mean-spirited, ritualistic, and confrontational things still are. It does seem like there's been a change at the highest levels, but that probably has more to do with the WWE's stricter codes for professionalism than anything else. I'd wager that things on an indy level may be similar to the way it's always been.

Then again..

I mean, I think we've all heard dozens of old guys say, "These kids today just play videogames and read comic books!"

But I'd wager there's still that traditional carnie aspect to things. We just haven't heard as much about it from famous people yet. The obvious counter to that line of thinking is that we should hear more and more about it due to social media and whatnot if it were a big problem...

I think there probably has been a change, but that it's not as great or as drastic a change as we'd like to believe.

[HMARK Center]

I do think a huge part of it is the way wrestling has become very niche and often attached to "geek culture". The people passionate enough about it to what to get involved directly are often folks who fit that mold, not the old school amateur wrestlers/football players/etc. of old (not that those guys don't still exist).

Another key point: a lot of "wrestling locker room decorum" in the old days evolved due to one simple factor - boredom. These days, you can travel anywhere with music, video games, an internet connection, etc., and thus there's far less of a perceived need to fill or kill time with strange "rules" or tons of potentially dangerous pranks and whatnot. That same kind of thing has happened in mainstream sports, as well; compare and contrast a lot of, say, baseball teams from the 1980s with a lot of teams since the start of the 2000s; much less drinking and shouting on charter flights, tons more iPods and laptops.

[gr1990]

Apr 25, 2015 11:14:45 GMT -5 Amazing Kitsune said:

I think you're possibly underestimating how mean-spirited, ritualistic, and confrontational things still are. It does seem like there's been a change at the highest levels, but that probably has more to do with the WWE's stricter codes for professionalism than anything else. I'd wager that things on an indy level may be similar to the way it's always been.

Then again..

I mean, I think we've all heard dozens of old guys say, "These kids today just play videogames and read comic books!"

But I'd wager there's still that traditional carnie aspect to things. We just haven't heard as much about it from famous people yet. The obvious counter to that line of thinking is that we should hear more and more about it due to social media and whatnot if it were a big problem...

I think there probably has been a change, but that it's not as great or as drastic a change as we'd like to believe.

Well, you'll probably never get away from it entirely, it's still a very competitive, testosterone-driven environment, and every workplace has its backbiting and bullying, but it doesn't seem to be as rife as it used to be. I'd say WWE is probably worse than the indies because it's more about trying to be the next one to get the big push etc, so people will be more ruthless and insecure. Indy wrestling today seems like one enormous family where nearly everybody gets along and supports each other.

[Reflecto]

The biggest thing that changed it that hasn't really been mentioned yet: Everyone KNOWS it's fake. The genie's out of the bottle.

In the territory days, people had to be hard-living, mean-spirited, ritualistic, confrontational people because a major part of pro wrestling's code of ethics was "NEVER, under any circumstances, let people know it's not real." As a result, people in the territories HAD to be rougher-edged, because almost everything you do outside the ring had to work on the goal of "make everyone believe pro wrestling is real".

If you were out and about after a show, and someone even hinted wrestling wasn't entirely on the up and up, you HAD to fight them over it- and you HAD TO WIN THAT FIGHT, no matter what the odds against you were, or your career was over. If you trained guys, you had to torture them in the ring to make sure they were man enough to protect that thin blue line when they graduated and make sure that by the time they could learn that wrestling wasn't real, they could hold their own in a bar fight with wrestling holds- and if someone didn't look like they could do that 100% (or if you just felt like a dick that day), you pick a random person- especially a potentially good prospect- and you cripple them just so that they'll tell everyone they know "wrestling is totally real. If it wasn't, how'd I get this injury doing it?"

In the '80s, though, Vince McMahon came out and said it was predetermined in a court of law, ending the argument forever: It's now a known fact wrestling is fake. As a result, you no longer had to keep that image of wrestling being real out there. It took a little time for the territory guys to start retiring from the business, as well as the first wave of people trained by those territory guys getting aged out and retired, but by the time that the 2000s rolled around, it was starting to get that wave of people who weren't brought up in the territories...and because the end of that mindset also killed the "pick some people who don't have a chance OR have TOO MUCH of a chance and cripple them just to make it look better", there were enough trainers going into their own schools who didn't have to deal with that, allowing more nerds to sneak through the process. Even if someone wouldn't sneak through, then you also had the fact that backyard wrestling rose to prominence in the '90s (and pretty much any independent wrestler of any acclaim has done some backyard wrestling in the past)- which gave some people who wouldn't normally get past screening for wrestling a handhold into the sport AND made sure when they did, they'd have more polish than a traditional wrestling neophyte.

[Reflecto]

Apr 28, 2015 16:11:39 GMT -5 devondragon said:

On that note, where did the "it's fake" stuff originate from? I can't believe that society thought it was 100% legit up until the 80s

For most of the time, the "it's fake" stuff was down to: The public "knew" it was fake most of the time- at least once a decade, there'd be some article that'd blow the top off the scandal and reveal it wasn't a legitimate competition- but most of the time, society agreed to not pay it any mind. It wasn't until the '80s that people decided to actually keep paying attention to it not being real.

[Ashy Larry]

The nerds have taken a lot of the fun out. I like carny bookers and promoters like Vince Russo and The ICP because of the weird stuff they put out. In a way you can say wrestling panders to the nerds more these days. It's a lot less about the theatrics/spectacle that made it what it was in the 80s and 90s (which a lot of it was terrible if you look at it through nerd glasses but good if you're a fan of carny stuff), I've seen it through both lenses (different strokes for different folks in both cases). There are less carny workers and more serious workers who are fans of MMA and the like. For every Jeff Hardy, there's a thousand Roderick Strongs.

[HMARK Center]

Apr 28, 2015 19:34:25 GMT -5 Ashy Larry said:

The nerds have taken a lot of the fun out. I like carny bookers and promoters like Vince Russo and The ICP because of the weird stuff they put out. In a way you can say wrestling panders to the nerds more these days. It's a lot less about the theatrics/spectacle that made it what it was in the 80s and 90s (which a lot of it was terrible if you look at it through nerd glasses but good if you're a fan of carny stuff), I've seen it through both lenses (different strokes for different folks in both cases). There are less carny workers and more serious workers who are fans of MMA and the like. For every Jeff Hardy, there's a thousand Roderick Strongs.

If anything, Russo is the antithesis of a "traditional carny" booker; dude was basically booking for wrestling nerds, but trying to swerve their expectations the whole time.

A carny booker would swear up and down that every single thing he books is on the up and up.

[Kevin Hamilton]

The way Russo did it never worked because the people he was trying to fool would be the very ones that would know where/how to research it in the first place.