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Post by thesunbeast on Dec 29, 2007 23:48:47 GMT -5
Kayfabe is still alive, it's just what's kayfabed vs what isn't kayfabed.
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 0:02:05 GMT -5
There is no question that from day one every one knew that wrestling was staged and scripted. But the difference is that wrestling is marketed as sports entertainment now instead of kayfabe. It is just not the same when the promoter openly recognizes it as sports entertainment. For some reason it makes it harder for fans to suspend disbelief when they watch matches, fueds and angles. I am a firm believer that past twenty years ago that there was likely more hostility and back stage friction and genuine heat between wrestlers than there is now due to kayfabe. (Which likely helped to enhance the kayfabe storylines) I think kayfabe helped to bring emotion and intensity to the world of professional wrerstling.
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Post by HMARK Center on Dec 30, 2007 0:11:06 GMT -5
I don't think it was the "official" death of kayfabe that hurt so much as the "knowing wink" booking that's followed.
It's one thing to respect your fans' collective intelligence; it's another thing to beat them over the head with "Oh, it's FAKE, and we're referencing a NEWZ report you read on the Internet, GET IT?!?"
Kayfabe may be broken, but you don't have to constantly book with that in mind. People are still willing to suspend their disbelief, or else they'd quit watching.
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Post by Dick Foley on Dec 30, 2007 0:14:23 GMT -5
If kayfabe had not died, wrestling would be dead. Or the human race would be just ignorant.
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 0:22:10 GMT -5
If kayfabe had not died, wrestling would be dead. Or the human race would be just ignorant. Well wrestling sure beat the odds for 50 plus years when kayfabe was alive and well. Maybe there is no coincidence that wrestling has hit an all time low in interest and apathy among the mainstream audience since kayfabe is dead now.
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Post by Bob Schlapowitz on Dec 30, 2007 0:25:10 GMT -5
If kayfabe had not died, wrestling would be dead. Or the human race would be just ignorant. Well wrestling sure beat the odds for 50 plus years when kayfabe was alive and well. Maybe there is no coincidence that wrestling has hit an all time low in interest and apathy among the mainstream audience since kayfabe is dead now. Not entirely true. Kayfabe was pretty much dead in the Attitude Era, and wrestling had it's highest mainstream audience then!
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 0:29:03 GMT -5
Well wrestling sure beat the odds for 50 plus years when kayfabe was alive and well. Maybe there is no coincidence that wrestling has hit an all time low in interest and apathy among the mainstream audience since kayfabe is dead now. Not entirely true. Kayfabe was pretty much dead in the Attitude Era, and wrestling had it's highest mainstream audience then! And how long did the Attitude Era last when compared to the rest of the history of kayfabe in wrestling? In fact it could be argued that the Attitude Era hurt wrestling in the longrun. I'm not going to sit here and say the Attitude Era wasn't exciting as a whole. Because yes it was exciting. But with the death of kayfabe, now look where the state of wrestling is now.
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Post by Bob Schlapowitz on Dec 30, 2007 0:34:23 GMT -5
Not entirely true. Kayfabe was pretty much dead in the Attitude Era, and wrestling had it's highest mainstream audience then! And how long did the Attitude Era last when compared to the rest of the history of kayfabe in wrestling? In fact it could be argued that the Attitude Era hurt wrestling in the longrun. I'm not going to sit here and say the Attitude Era wasn't exciting as a whole. Because yes it was exciting. But with the death of kayfabe, now look where the state of wrestling is now. OK, I can see your point there!
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Post by Dick Foley on Dec 30, 2007 0:50:45 GMT -5
Wrestling is still more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s and earlier. Plus we as a people are much smarter than people in the 50s-40s and we want our entertainment to be smarter. CSI would have been over many people's heads in the 80s but now it is the #1 show.
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 0:58:29 GMT -5
Wrestling is still more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s and earlier. Plus we as a people are much smarter than people in the 50s-40s and we want our entertainment to be smarter. CSI would have been over many people's heads in the 80s but now it is the #1 show. How do you know wrestling was more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s? And what makes you think people are smarter today than they were in the 40s and 50s? Please don't mistake the fact that we have more instant access to wrestling today through technology(television, internet, etc.) to mean that wrestling is more popular today than it was in the 50s and 60s. And as far as people wanting smarter entertainment did you know that in the 40s and 50s that a lot of people dressed up when they went to wrestling shows to watch technical matches that so many internet smarks would love to see today. I would guess that if some of those 40s and 50s people could be teleported to a 2007 wrestling show that they would think it was a circus act.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Dec 30, 2007 1:07:24 GMT -5
I don't see the death of kayfabe as a bad thing in and of itself. I agree with HMark that the practice of winking at the audience rather than building storylines has done more to dilute the product and make it boring than the death of kayfabe. The kind of tounge and check inside references have been made for a long time but in the days before the internet they were made in passing for people who were on the inside of the bussiness, not for fans to think they were on the inside to build up some convaluted story that doesn't make any sense. I also don't think that kayfabe is completely dead, rather it has just been changed to the times. The silly notion that the workers characters exist in the world as the exist in WWE programing. Someone mentioned the Matrix and suspending disbelief. So while you watch a movie you want Neo to take down Smith and such but afterwards you can think about things like the performances of Keenu Reeves and Hugh Weaving. With WWE it all supposed to be the same and efforts to look at a performance (which they are) from a techincal standpoint is frowned apon as not suspending disbelief. That I do not get.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Dec 30, 2007 1:12:25 GMT -5
Wrestling is still more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s and earlier. Plus we as a people are much smarter than people in the 50s-40s and we want our entertainment to be smarter. CSI would have been over many people's heads in the 80s but now it is the #1 show. How do you know wrestling was more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s? And what makes you think people are smarter today than they were in the 40s and 50s? Please don't mistake the fact that we have more instant access to wrestling today through technology(television, internet, etc.) to mean that wrestling is more popular today than it was in the 50s and 60s. And as far as people wanting smarter entertainment did you know that in the 40s and 50s that a lot of people dressed up when they went to wrestling shows to watch technical matches that so many internet smarks would love to see today. I would guess that if some of those 40s and 50s people could be teleported to a 2007 wrestling show that they would think it was a circus act. I would never agree that people today are smarter than people in the 50's. Nor would argue that about any generation. Do we have acesses to more information? Yes, but does that make us smarter? That's up for debate. I would make this point about live show turnouts in the 40-60's. The fact that it was so widely poplular may have had to do with wrestling being the only live entertainment in a large geographic area. Especally when you look at the Souther United States. There were no pro sports franchises, a fairly rural population that would be a distance away from urban theaters and films and the desire of people to be able to go somewhere where the could dress up and play a different role than usual
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 1:21:15 GMT -5
How do you know wrestling was more popular now than it was in the 50s and 60s? And what makes you think people are smarter today than they were in the 40s and 50s? Please don't mistake the fact that we have more instant access to wrestling today through technology(television, internet, etc.) to mean that wrestling is more popular today than it was in the 50s and 60s. And as far as people wanting smarter entertainment did you know that in the 40s and 50s that a lot of people dressed up when they went to wrestling shows to watch technical matches that so many internet smarks would love to see today. I would guess that if some of those 40s and 50s people could be teleported to a 2007 wrestling show that they would think it was a circus act. I would never agree that people today are smarter than people in the 50's. Nor would argue that about any generation. Do we have acesses to more information? Yes, but does that make us smarter? That's up for debate. I would make this point about live show turnouts in the 40-60's. The fact that it was so widely poplular may have had to do with wrestling being the only live entertainment in a large geographic area. Especally when you look at the Souther United States. There were no pro sports franchises, a fairly rural population that would be a distance away from urban theaters and films and the desire of people to be able to go somewhere where the could dress up and play a different role than usual I think that what made wrestling so appealing also back then was because it was not as saturated as it is today. I think you made a good point about in the Southern U.S. it was an opportunity to go somewhere and do something. Although my dad would tell me that weekend pro wrestling events at local gyms were extremely popular in the 60s. My dad watched wrestling religiously every week from the late 50s to around 2000 and even he mentions how it is so much different today and how he can't stand to watch it anymore.
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Post by Dick Foley on Dec 30, 2007 1:43:03 GMT -5
Today: Millions of people are watching wrestling on television and 10,000 people at live events across the nation.
50's: Small territories with little or no TV coverage. There were no arenas in rural areas for wrestling. Maybe they wrestled at the armory in front of 100-200 people.
And if you don't think that the human race is smarter now than it was in the 50s, all I have to point to is "duck and cover" training.
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Post by tarheelfan on Dec 30, 2007 1:53:15 GMT -5
Today: Millions of people are watching wrestling on television and 10,000 people at live events across the nation. 50's: Small territories with little or no TV coverage. There were no arenas in rural areas for wrestling. Maybe they wrestled at the armory in front of 100-200 people. And if you don't think that the human race is smarter now than it was in the 50s, all I have to point to is "duck and cover" training. I guarantee you that if the people in the 1950s had access to cable and the internet and the technologies we have today then wrestling would be as popular as it is today if not more. When I was small we did not have cable yet nor had cable tv come out yet but every week we would watch wrestling every Saturday night on tv on the local station with a lot of enthusiasm. I will grant you that duck and cover was stupid but remember that arguably more scientific advancement ocurred in the first half of the twentieth century than from the start of human history. Advances that helped us be where we are today.
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