Anyone else NEVER believe wrestling was real?

[Deleted]

So, I see a lot of people talk about the moment they found out wrestling was fake.

For me, I never believed it was real. And that was the whole appeal of it to me. The fact that two people can put on a show together. It's almost like a dance. Like a performance.

I grew up during the New Generation Era. And even as a kid, I knew this circus like show wasn't reality. It was way too over the top and carny for me to ever believe it was real life.

I guess I just can't comprehend the idea that somebody could ever believe wrestling is real, considering 95% of the moves would be impossible to pull off unless the opponent was co-operating with you. 

So, did anyone else ever fall in love with wrestling due to the art of it all, and not because they were sucked in and worked, brother?

[Cranjis McBasketball]

Yes, but no.

When I started watching, I was the only fan in the house, I was also 6. So, my parents made sure to explain to me they weren't really fighting and were friends for real and it was just a show. I was 6. I believed in it.

So I could get all high and mighty and say I always knew and be truthful but at the same time, yes, I believed it was real.

[rnrk supports BLM]

I got into wrestling with Undertaker vs Yokozuna, the feud where the zombie man gets beaten when his magic urn is stolen by the baddies and his spirit ascends out of the arena.

It was honestly a surprise to me the first time I got a "You know it's fake, right?" response when mentioning my enjoyment of pro wrestling, because it'd never even occured to me that anybody watched this thinking it was real.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

It wasn't something I thought about too hard when I first started watching around 1991. I just knew that wrestling was fun.

I knew there was sleight of hand involved in some fashion, I just didn't know what the particulars were until I got online in 1997.

[cjh]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9b-6Ef8QrI

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaUBwDvzOd0 (4:39 for fan involvement)

There were adults who believed in the 1980s.

[Toilet Paper Roll]

I started watching when I was very young in 1987. I thought it was real for a couple years, started questioning it around 89, and probably knew the gig was up completely the following year.

[Viking Hall]

Yeah, I think I've mentioned it before that by the time I'd got into wrestling I'd already watched stuff like Power Rangers, various action movies and martial arts films, at no point did I consider those real and wrestling was no different.

[timelimitdraw]

By the time I started watching, there was a local radio show that was hosted by a guy who occasionally worked with indies. He talked about stuff in a half-shoot/half-work fashion. I was amazed at his inside knowledge, not realizing in those pre-Internet days that he was likely just reading from the Observer and the Torch. I never believed it was a legitimate competition, but I was still entertained and a huge fan for around 20 years before becoming more of a casual fan.

[cabbageboy]

Nah I never thought it was real exactly. My dad always joked about various wrestlers "following the script" and all that. There were things like blood that I didn't fully get though. Was it real? Was it somehow fake blood?

[Deleted]

Me. I could tell from the first time I watched that it was fake. I didn't care that it was fake though, just like I didn't care that any other show was fake.

[CeilingFan]

Hacksaw Jim Duggan being arrested while traveling with his "enemy" Iron Sheik, was the wake-up call for me and many other marks.

[Deleted]

Jul 27, 2020 13:10:15 GMT -5 cabbageboy said:

Nah I never thought it was real exactly. My dad always joked about various wrestlers "following the script" and all that. There were things like blood that I didn't fully get though. Was it real? Was it somehow fake blood?

I remember when I was 11 in school and I was arguing with these kids in my class who were convinced that the blood was tomato ketchup and the ring posts were rubber.

They looked at me like I was stupid.

Now I simply don't tell anyone I enjoy wrestling because I haven't got the energy for a conversation like that.

[Deleted]

Jul 26, 2020 20:50:42 GMT -5 rnrk supports BLM said:

I got into wrestling with Undertaker vs Yokozuna, the feud where the zombie man gets beaten when his magic urn is stolen by the baddies and his spirit ascends out of the arena.

It was honestly a surprise to me the first time I got a "You know it's fake, right?" response when mentioning my enjoyment of pro wrestling, because it'd never even occured to me that anybody watched this thinking it was real.

That's the thing I never understood.

Why do they assume every wrestling fan thinks it's real?

You don't hear of any Walking Dead fans getting the whole "You know there's no zombie apocalypse right?" talk.

I know back in the 60s when Bruno was wrestling, kayfabe was at its peak. But surely we are past that now and wrestling is a TV show like everything else?

[Confused Mark Wahlberg]

I remember being a little kid and wondering how it took boxers months to have matches but the wrestlers could go almost every week.

So maybe?

[Bad Moon]

I think it took me all of 30 minutes into my first Smackdown to figure it out.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

From time to time I would find “WRESTLING IS REAL” graffiti on our desks when I was in high school during peak Attitude, but I never corrected them because I just took it as a roundabout way of them telling people to respect it.

[Deleted]

I don't think I ever thought of it as "real" or "not real".

I knew from watching guys like Kamala and the Missing Link that there was a theatrical aspect to it, but there were still certain things that came across to me as very scary and real, such as when Randy Savage made Steamboat "swallow his tongue" or Ron Bass cut Beefcake's face to pieces with his spur.

So, it was more real to me than Scooby Doo even though I knew there were a lot of theatrics.

[lildude8218]

I thought it was real for way longer than I'd like to admit. In my defense this was partly due to my older brother constantly having to tell me how stupid and fake wrestling was so I defiantly had to go against this. Going online for the first time and reading about "jobbers" and that things were taped in advance finally clued me in. I mean I even remember thinking Superstars and Wrestling Challenge were live. I even wondered why Randy Savage would take a match with Hercules on the morning of the Royal Rumble, it seemed like such a stupid idea. Even things like obvious character changes (Smash becoming Repo Man) were things that didn't make me think it was fake. I just assumed Smash wanted to try something different with his career (no, I didn't think he literally became a Repo Man, just decided to wrestle as one.) Guys would change up their looks all the time so it just made sense to me.

[I'm Team Bayley and Indi]

I never believed it was real, but if I had believed for a second, this happened early into my fandom...

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

My sister blew the whistle on that shit to me during the first episode I watched.