WWE Champion: "Games Are Games, Reality Is Reality"
- Thread starter John Funk
- Start date
Well, the fans (most of them anyway) are well aware that wrestling is staged, but they like to suspend their disbelief. It's like watching a movie, it's more fun if you're not constantly thinking 'this is fake'.Timbydude said:
And even though wrestling is staged, it's hardly 'fake'. All those slams and bumps hurt, and sometimes things can go really bad.
Anyway, I can understand if someone doesn't like wrestling. I personally don't like Formula 1, it's just not my cup of tea.
Yeah, lol. It's heavily implied but not explicitly stated. Wrestlers get a lot of shit from their companies if they threaten the scripted nature of the business. Triple H got demoted to the "minor league" for breaking character during a show. For hugging and cheering on two wrestlers?real life friends?that were leaving the company.Jonluw said:
Timbydude said:
While wrestling is fake, and can be argued as being essentially acting, with a lot more grunting, the damage it does to the wrestlers isn't false at all. Look at the highflying moves (jeff hardy springs to mind...). The tombstone, if done wrong can break the next and cause severe damage.
For fans of ECW, before it became integrated into WWE, Axl and Ian Rotten's Taipai Death Match -- taped up hands, dipped in super glue, then dipped into broken glass, then beat the hell out of each-other. How do you fake that? The entire front row around the stage got to see the taped up, glassed up, hands up close before the match too, to confirm it was real glass.
Or Terry Funk and Sabu's barbed wire match, replacing the ring ropes with barbed wire. Sabu sliced his arm open (later needing over 100 stitches, still got a very big scar from it), grabbed athletic tape, taped his arm up, and kept going. The match ended with a pinfall despite Funk's shoulders not being down because the wire was a few centimetres from his throat.
They put their bodies on the line every week to entertain the audience. Yes, the audience can be seen as barbaric, but the wrestlers thrived on it.
If that doesn't convince you... Chris Benoit. The damage he suffered by wrestling, as well as the drugs he was on to keep going in wrestling (because it's not just a career, it's a way of life, once you've been out there in the ring in front of thousands of fans you can't do anything else) is the most likely cause of his actions*. Post-mortem autopsy of his brain showed damage equivalent to that of a seventy year old alzheimer's patient.
*for those that don't know what he did, look it up. I'm not going into it here.
News flash for you. (almost) EVERYTHING ON TV/MOVIES/THE INTERNET IS NOT REAL. Do you also say that you have no respect for games that say "The most real shooter/driving sim/ Cooking adventure" because thats the exact same thing.Timbydude said:
Looking past the "WWE/WWF is completely scripted" discussion, I must admit that this guy understands that parents need to take responsibility for monitoring their kids. Kofi is a hero.
Huh.
I can't say I was expecting an article about someone from the WWE on the Escapist.
Props to Kingston anyway.
I can't say I was expecting an article about someone from the WWE on the Escapist.
Props to Kingston anyway.
*scratching head* Vince McMahon out and out said it (not being real fights) years ago, on national television. They aren't trying to hide it anymore - thus the whole transition to "sports entertainment*.PatchlingZoon said:
People here are mistaking "fake" for "kayfabe". It's like breaking the fourth wall in any other medium, but even then that's marginal. It's more like plausibility - is what's occuring acceptable given the product's storyline/universe/target audience.
CHIKARA fans will know how far kayfabe can stretch. They have a worker who treats the NES controller on his tights as real, so a hit to the pause button, and he'll freeze in place.
(Wasn't there an article on here about kayfabe before?)
OT! - It's nice to see someone established in other media defending gaming for a change. Oh, and to the people who talk about kids doing wrestling moves on each other? That's the same kind of logic anti-gaming crusaders take. In other words: Where were the parents?
Maybe if we beat the Congresscritters' heads in, they'll develop some sense?Not G. Ivingname said:
Disclaimer: This was meant as an ironic comment, I'm not advocating violence.
He said that? Huh. Goes to show how little I actually keep track of the developments in wrestling.epunk35 said:
I think what annoys people isn't that it is fake. It's the people that insist it's real, when it really isn't, that are annoying. But apparently, that isn't an issue anymore.
Personally, if I want to watch someone fight; I want to see an actual fight between professional fighters who want to determine who's stronger.
That, or I want to watch a carefully coreographed fight where every camera angle has been placed thoughtfully.
I do not want to watch two people pretend to compete against each other in a fashion that's just too simple to see through.
Other people have also pointed out that the performers do indeed get hurt; and we are aware of that. That isn't the point though. We aren't arguing that the fighters aren't getting hurt when we say it isn't real. We're arguing that it's scripted: The outcome of the match has been decided beforehand. When people watch, say, boxing or MMA, they want to see two professional fighters putting their honed skills up against one another, not watch two actors hurt eachother until the bell rings, and then have one of them arbitrarily called the "winner".tpbloomfield said:
Circus artists get hurt all the time. That doesn't mean we might as well go to the circus when we want to watch an MMA match.
The essence of fighting sports isn't watching people get hurt. You can do that a thousand other ways. It is watching two professionals compete; and wrestling just isn't that.
That's why we say professional wrestling isn't real. Not because we're claiming people doesn't get hurt in the process.
Keyfabe breaking is not considered to be as big of a punishment as it used to be, Paul Levesque breaks it sometimes, even after the MSG incident, during the Writers strike him and Shaun even commented "Who writes this crap?" "no-one there all on strike" Mid way though a DX Promo. Mind being the Bosses Son in Law helps a bit.
Still, on a pure story/Match results point of view, the fact that its pre arranged shouldn't really affect much, last time I checked 90% of everything on television is pre arranged or at least edited so hard it might as well be, Pro wrestling is all about spectacle in the way that a MMA match could never be. The fact that its "fake" helps when talking people into letting you get power bombed though a table that also happens to be on fire and 30 feet in the air stacked on more tables or fight in a ring of barbed wire or... Well let the old ECW exists in any way shape or form. Its showmanship, its almost an action drama in the same way any Chinese Wirefu movie is. Its just as much fun seeing the legendary hero defeat the dark lord as it is watching Austin Pin Michaels at Westlemaina even though you clearly know when the cameras stop rolling they are both back stage chatting away like friends (unless there Jeff Jarret and Angle...oh lordy what a mess, almost makes watching Russo ruin TNA worth watching)
BUT on point, well, Kofi is speaking the truth. But I doubt many who don't believe it now will care. You can take a horse to water, but that wont stop you from wanting to drown the sodding thing for not drinking.
Still, on a pure story/Match results point of view, the fact that its pre arranged shouldn't really affect much, last time I checked 90% of everything on television is pre arranged or at least edited so hard it might as well be, Pro wrestling is all about spectacle in the way that a MMA match could never be. The fact that its "fake" helps when talking people into letting you get power bombed though a table that also happens to be on fire and 30 feet in the air stacked on more tables or fight in a ring of barbed wire or... Well let the old ECW exists in any way shape or form. Its showmanship, its almost an action drama in the same way any Chinese Wirefu movie is. Its just as much fun seeing the legendary hero defeat the dark lord as it is watching Austin Pin Michaels at Westlemaina even though you clearly know when the cameras stop rolling they are both back stage chatting away like friends (unless there Jeff Jarret and Angle...oh lordy what a mess, almost makes watching Russo ruin TNA worth watching)
BUT on point, well, Kofi is speaking the truth. But I doubt many who don't believe it now will care. You can take a horse to water, but that wont stop you from wanting to drown the sodding thing for not drinking.
Blow by blow, reality television is more faked than wrestling.The_root_of_all_evil said:
Wrestling doesn't have fancy editing, or camera tricks. Predetermined winners, yeah, but at least we have the courtesy of telling the workers our plan ahead of time, rather than just stringing them along to emotionally torment them.