Why is the term "Sports Entertainer" an insult?

[deviljatt86]

Considering the point of wrestling companies is to provide entertainment, sports entertainer is the ideal term. Actual sport teams, those in the NBA, NFL, MLB etc, don't care if the game is interesting to the fans, as long as they win. In fact, most athletes would prefer landslide victories, rather than close nail-baiters, because wins matter more than entertaining the fans. On the other side, wrestlers (those in the squared ring) are more concerned about providing entertainment for the fans. Its all about telling a story. In this aspect, wrestlers are more akin to actors rather than professional athletes. So, why is the term "Sports Entertainer" an insult?

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Because it’s the catch-all heater term for the issues that people have with WWE’s whole… everything. It’s easy to call the over-produced, over-scripted wrestling that people don’t like by that term to make it seem expressly different and lesser than the wrestling that people do like.

It’s still wrestling, though, no matter what anybody calls it.

[Legion]

It's like when people try to take away from other people's enjoyments of certain types of cinema by using terms to detract from that, or how you seemingly have to pick a console between X-Box and PS.

It's generally just a way for people to differentiate between what they like and dont, and for some to feel superior over what people 'should' like and what 'zombies/sheeple/indoctrinated/<insert any other insult>' like instead.

In this case it's also intrinsically linked to Vince and his brand of pro-wrestling - hence the whole JAS and their direct attempts to draw heat by referencing it.

A version of it happens in every single fandom and there isnt much to be done about it.

[koreycaskets]

I actually prefer wrestler but.. all sports in general if there is a fanbase is Sports Entertainment.

[Hit Girl]

Because it's a dumb term that demonstrates the absurdity of a wrestling company apparently being ashamed of being called wrestling, and a term that has never caught on outside the delusional WWE corporate bubble.

[Perd]

I’ve never thought of it as an insult. I more think of it as a silly, unnecessary differentiation. I understand that it’s mostly about branding. But to what end? Who, outside of Vince and the gang, actually thinks of WWE as "sports entertainment"? It’s pro wrestling, it has always been pro wrestling, and it will always be pro wrestling. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2022 13:12:50 GMT -5 Hit Girl said:

Because it's a dumb term that demonstrates the absurdity of a wrestling company apparently being ashamed of being called wrestling, and a term that has never caught on outside the delusional WWE corporate bubble.

Yeah, this. It's the self-loathing of it all that gets me. It'd be one thing if the term "sports entertainer" (or "superstar") were used in addition to "wrestler," but, instead WWE uses those terms exclusively and pretends that the word "wrestling" doesn't exist. I watch the WWE because I like wrestling, WWE apparently being more embarrassed about wrestling than any other person or entity in society kind of sucks.

[Deleted]

In a sense, I think it's insulting because it shows how Vince finds the very thing that made him his fortune abhorrent.

Yes, professional wrestling is inherently ridiculous. But so is going to a magic show. It doesn't make one less of an art than the other. And sports entertainment as a term just seems like a way to diminish and cheapen that art.

[Feargus McReddit]

I don’t hate it, it’s just always been a weird term by WWE that’s used to seperate itself from other forms of pro wrestling and, like EoE and others said, you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. It hasn’t fooled anyone and it would be seen as less of an insult if they didn’t try and push it so hard.

Hell, people calling WWF WWE has had more effect on the mainstream lexicon than sports entertainment has.

[Zone Was Wrong]

For me it's a larger problem with WWE and how even their terms are over produced. Like, there's nothing wrong with the term wrestler, but in an effort to create their own language they separate themselves from what they are at the heart of things. Just makes them sound silly calling wrestlers sports entertainers when literally everywhere else they're called wrestlers.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

It's a shorthand, and a buzzword. It's representative of something. It is not literally about sports entertainment being inferior to 'wrestling' except for people cutting in gimmick promos to sell an angle or fans who don't understand wrestling is a subjective art and there is no Good or Bad wrestling type

[Final Countdown Jones]

Complaining about "sports entertainment" isn't ever complaining about the wrestlers, it's complaining about corporatized buzzword culture and WWE trying to euphemize away what it is to make something trademarkable. You can see it in the smaller scale though whenever a band tries to claim "No I'm not in this genre, I'm in [completely made up genre that I just cooked up]" and everyone rolls their eyes at it and keeps calling them what they are.

[Mozenrath]

It's one of those things like "industry plant" in music circles, implying a certain lack of authenticity. Heavily produced, lacking in depth.

Now, like "industry plant", it's abused and also applies to a lot of perfectly capable performers, in this case, technically all of them, but there's connotations at play.

[Cyno]

It's corporate newspeak nonsense.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2022 15:23:11 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

It's one of those things like "industry plant" in music circles, implying a certain lack of authenticity. Heavily produced, lacking in depth.

Now, like "industry plant", it's abused and also applies to a lot of perfectly capable performers, in this case, technically all of them, but there's connotations at play.

I didn't know "industry plant" was even used outside of the RateYourMusic forums.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2022 12:42:51 GMT -5 EoE: Well There's Your Problem said:

Because it’s the catch-all heater term for the issues that people have with WWE’s whole… everything. It’s easy to call the over-produced, over-scripted wrestling that people don’t like by that term to make it seem expressly different and lesser than the wrestling that people do like.

It’s still wrestling, though, no matter what anybody calls it.

Best post in months...Nailed it 110%

[Soultastic]

Because it's not used by WWE as a synonym, but as an euphemism. I mean, it can literally only refer to wrestling or the Harlem Globetrotters. But the insistance on using it INSTEAD of wrestling rather than as an equivalent has made people think of it as something different. And since it seems like something different, you kinda need to define it, leading to what EoE: Well There's Your Problem is talking about.

[dbrussel]

It's not an insult unless you feel insulted

[Hypnosis]

Jun 23, 2022 15:41:59 GMT -5 @dax said:

Jun 23, 2022 15:23:11 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

It's one of those things like "industry plant" in music circles, implying a certain lack of authenticity. Heavily produced, lacking in depth.

Now, like "industry plant", it's abused and also applies to a lot of perfectly capable performers, in this case, technically all of them, but there's connotations at play.

I didn't know "industry plant" was even used outside of the RateYourMusic forums.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

The only wrestling promotion that was 100% free of Sports Entertainment was RINGS. And the RINGS Rap makes that debatable.

Whenever I hear the term I think about pre and post match interviews, walkout music, entrance gear, costumes, taunts, mannerisms during the match, basic promotion ideas, a celeb who’s a fan, etc. Stuff that can work inside the kayfabe.