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Post by saggyboyflair on Dec 28, 2007 12:25:39 GMT -5
people think? It seems to go hand and hand with vince buying the competition. Before fans used to flock to the arenas to see heels get beat and the babyfaces reign supreme. There seemed to be a clear indication that the heels and babyfaces without question had a general dislike for each other which helped us suspend disbelief as fans. Now vince breaks kayfabe on RAW when he invited the heels and the faces to party together at the end. Now there seems to be no "heat" since we know its all a show. Why go watch a show when you know the wrestlers really dont "hate" each other. Granted, the business has evolved into this. But now what is the reason to watch when we have clear reality based "heat" on CNN and such. Maybe wwe needs to go to a more based UFC type style which seems to be the real future.
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Dean-o
Grimlock
Haha we're having fun Maggle!
Posts: 13,865
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Post by Dean-o on Dec 28, 2007 12:35:17 GMT -5
I still pretend it's real every time I watch. I knew from a kid that everything was fake, but I still got into the storylines.
Still, I see your point. If they showed Vince and Austin joking around during their red-hot feud, there would be no way it would have become so big.
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Post by Nick Loves Dr. Pepper on Dec 28, 2007 12:35:47 GMT -5
The fact that some people may see wrestling entertainment as beneath them because it is just "fake" to them is really a poor excuse. Not having a taste for it is another thing. It uses the same principle of suspension of disbelief as movies do. It is purely entertainment and I don't think the fans knowing it is scripted affects the viewing of it. It is true that it doesn't have the magic as if you are a kid, but eventhough it is scripted it has the same appeal for people who like acrobatic displays and sometimes dramatic storylines like in soap operas. I hope I have not missed the point of the question.
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Post by WHATAMANOOOVER on Dec 28, 2007 13:15:43 GMT -5
Well, the WWE is a billion dollar corporation so it really hasn't hurt them at all.
But with the smaller companies, there really is only one other national company. But you can't blame the death of kayfabe on that.
I wonder what it's like to be a young kid now, watching pro wrestling. Do they understand the worked meaning of it? Or do they still believe it's "real" until they find out down the line?
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Post by Loki on Dec 28, 2007 13:18:03 GMT -5
I'm firmly convinced the death of kayfabe hurt pro wrestling a lot.
Even though most fans (are we really sure it's the majority of them?) know it's fake/scripted, kayfabe was a very important ally when it comes to booking an angle or planning a match anyway.
Suspending our disbelief isn't easy when they make on-air smark remarks, or there's much more tongue-in-the-cheek material than it'd be.
Some of the best and most polarizing feuds were those with real life animosity between the guys, or those where kayfabe was still in use.
Sure, with all the internet newz sites running wild, and with every fan with internet access feeling he's an actual insider, kayfabe was doomed, but if you look closer, it's stil alive, just works in different ways
BTW, UFC is wrestling's future like IRL is F1's future...
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Post by Avalanche Alvarez on Dec 28, 2007 13:20:43 GMT -5
Suspending disbelief. It's what makes "The Matrix" and other stories like it fun. You say "Okay, I'll buy that." Same thing with wrestling. I just know the truth behind it all unlike I did when I was younger.
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Post by Cretinous Humanoid on Dec 28, 2007 13:47:43 GMT -5
It hasn't hurt it for me, but that could be because I have known it was fake ever since i was a young kid watching the AWA with my Dad.
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Post by The only Buzz Sawyer mark ever on Dec 28, 2007 14:01:48 GMT -5
To quote/paraphrase Bobby Heenan: "It's over. As soon as we showed how we did the tricks, it was over."
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Post by silentrage on Dec 28, 2007 14:03:21 GMT -5
Oh, of course.
And if you watch the Highspots Bobby Heenan shoot interview, he goes as far to say that it pretty much got the ball rolling on the absolute death of the business.
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Post by Palatial Regalia on Dec 28, 2007 14:12:16 GMT -5
The death of kayfabe dealt pro wrestling a serious blow. I mean really what makes a main eventer these days, just whoever Vince has a hardon for? What's the point of the rest of the card? Filler is what wrestling has degenerated to outside of the main event. At least with kayfabe there was a suppossed standing where wins and losses determined who could be a contender.
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Post by Cretinous Humanoid on Dec 28, 2007 14:24:55 GMT -5
God awful booking is hurting the business far more than the death of kayfabe. I think the only part of the death of kayfabe that is hurting is that they keep breaking it on TV.
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Post by molson5 on Dec 28, 2007 14:25:47 GMT -5
I really think kayfabe died a lot earlier than people think. I'm thinking like the 1960s.
Sure, kids believed in the 70s, and 80s, but adults? I'm sorry, you had to be pretty limited as an adult to believe pro wrestling was EVER legitimate competition, at least going back to when punching and kicking were actually illegal, etc.
It's hilarious that Vince somehow gets blamed for this too. He wasn't the first guy to decide that pro wrestling was entertainment. The first guy to decide that was the first guy who fixed a series of wrestling matches to make them more exciting - probably in the 1800s.
As for the blatant on-screen breaking of kayfabe (A totally different issue), I think it was retarded the way Russo did it, but having heels and faces drink beer in a ring afterwards is NOT breaking kayfabe. Either is a face traveling with a heel on the road. Why couldn't Elijah Burke have a beer with Paul London in a real world WWE, just because they're "different alignments"? And even though two guys might be feuding - they can't stand in the same ring during a party and avoid beating each other up?
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Post by Nick Loves Dr. Pepper on Dec 28, 2007 14:27:15 GMT -5
God awful booking is hurting the business far more than the death of kayfabe. I think the only part of the death of kayfabe that is hurting is that they keep breaking it on TV. Russo kept screwing around with kayfabe and look what kind of happenings occured on Nitro.
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Post by SassovsHart on Dec 28, 2007 14:34:00 GMT -5
God awful booking is hurting the business far more than the death of kayfabe. I think the only part of the death of kayfabe that is hurting is that they keep breaking it on TV. Agreed on both points. Also, to the end of the original post, no they don't need to become more like UFC. If most people want realism, they'll watch something they know is real, not a scripted competition that's trying to mimmick MMA all of a sudden. Interesting characters, and captivating storylines are what's needed to energize the fanbase. While I wasn't a fan of several of the aspects of the attitude era, what it did do was prove that when you provide lots of drama and compelling characters, that people will care about the product (even if kayfabe is dead).
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Post by Jon The Joker on Dec 28, 2007 14:35:29 GMT -5
Kayfabe may have hurt the biz a little, but not enough to kill it. The thing that is killing the biz more than anything is the lack of creativity in it's booking.
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Post by joeman on Dec 28, 2007 14:54:49 GMT -5
Lets blame Mcmahon, it is a lot easier than writing a half-page essay about who killed kayfabe.
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wwerules60
El Dandy
"Bring what? a vomit bag? a fig newton?"
Posts: 8,999
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Post by wwerules60 on Dec 28, 2007 14:59:35 GMT -5
I think the internet has had quite a big effect on it. I remeber hearing like a 10 year old kid talking about backstage rumours and stuff, I just didn't think that was right. I think you need to be a mark first before you can become a smark.
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Chainsaw
T
A very BAD man.
It is what it is
Posts: 90,480
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Post by Chainsaw on Dec 28, 2007 15:13:58 GMT -5
Realistically, if kayfabe was so important to the business, then we wouldn't have a guy like HHH throwing out innuendo about him still being married to Steph pn a major broadcast. Given anyone else in the company trying that would be severely disciplined, but it shows how much impact kayfabe really had. And considering how off-base a lot of internet reports are, I'd say there's hardly much impact there either. The only reason a lot of the wrestlers, especially in WWE, hate the internet so much is that it doesn't make them an exclusive club anymore. Boo frikkin hoo.
I still say pretending to not know how the wrestling business works is like trying to figure out how they shot Star Wars in outer space. Just enjoy it whenever you can as the athletic entertainment product that it is.
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mAk
Tommy Wiseau
"It's all part of the plan."
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Post by mAk on Dec 29, 2007 2:17:33 GMT -5
Yes. That along with the internet have killed wrestling. The last time I was truly surprised by anything was when Eric Bischoff showed up on RAW, because the internet didn't know about it. people think? It seems to go hand and hand with vince buying the competition. Before fans used to flock to the arenas to see heels get beat and the babyfaces reign supreme. There seemed to be a clear indication that the heels and babyfaces without question had a general dislike for each other which helped us suspend disbelief as fans. Now vince breaks kayfabe on RAW when he invited the heels and the faces to party together at the end. Now there seems to be no "heat" since we know its all a show. Why go watch a show when you know the wrestlers really dont "hate" each other. Granted, the business has evolved into this. But now what is the reason to watch when we have clear reality based "heat" on CNN and such. Maybe wwe needs to go to a more based UFC type style which seems to be the real future.
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Post by Bobby Womack on Dec 29, 2007 2:33:36 GMT -5
people knew that wrestling was fake and that the wrestlers didnt really hate each other while the wwe and everyone else were still fighting tooth and nail to keep kayfabe alive, but yeah the days of everything being posted on the internet before it happens has hurt it abit but internet smarks are a very small portion of wrestling fans
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