Okay, so I'm a fan of professional wrestling. I said that in my initial blog post and I've never hidden the fact that I enjoy it. Now, in the internet wrestling community (IWC), there are only two types of fans: marks, who are either unaware that wrestling is predetermined or at least act that way and smarks, are the fans who know or think they know about the business. They don't care about the angles or gimmicks, they just like good wrestling. I guess that I personally fall into the second category, except that I don't think that I know everything about wrestling. I know as much as I need to in order to be entertained (hopefully).
As a fan, I want to be entertained. I don't care if a particular guy becomes the champion or doesn't, as long as the match is well put together and at the end, I've enjoyed myself. A lot of fans have gotten upset recently because Mike Mizanin (The Miz) has become the WWE champion. They feel like he isn't good enough at cutting promos or wrestling to be "The Guy" of the company. Personally, I don't really care. The guy entertains me and for me, that's what is important. Anyway, what I find really funny about the reaction from fans is that SO MANY of them have complained about how we see the same feuds and wrestlers over and over again facing each other and calling for something new, but when they're given someone new at the top of the heap, they complain. My belief is that more people are marks than they care to admit. They want THEIR GUY to make it to the top, but not someone else. If their guy doesn't make it, they pout.
Because I want to be entertained and see good wrestling, I watch a lot of Puroresu (Japanese wrestling) and I find clips or shows of Chikara Pro Wrestling. Chikara is awesome because they have several wrestlers wear masks (which I still love) and they still use gimmicks. Gimmicks are one of the things I miss from the early days of my wrestling watching. A gimmick is the character that a wrestler portrays. The Undertaker, for example, began wrestling as a wrestling undertaker. Funny how that worked out. He has gone from that to an evil cult leader to a biker to a sort of half-breed MMA fighter/corpse...thing. Anyway, Chikara still uses gimmicks, such as Create-a-Wrestler. That's an actual guy who takes his gimmick from the Create-A-Wrestler feature in many wrestling video games. Since this guy has started wrestling, he changes what wrestler he is with each Chikara season. So far, he has been Moscow the Communist Bovine, Ultimo Breakfast, Dasher Hatfield, and Create-A-Wrestler. How awesome is that? It's pretty awesome. And even more awesome is The Colony. Yes, a colony of wrestling ants. Fire Ant, Soldier Ant and Green Ant. And the best part is all of these guys (and the few women) are extremely athletic and have been trained very well by the trainers of the Chikara Wrestle Factory, "Lightning" Mike Quackenbush and Claudio Castagnoli. If you're a fan of wrestling and you haven't seen Chikara, check it out. It's worth it. Go to www.chikarapro.com for more info.
In puroresu, there aren't nearly as many gimmicks, but the athleticism is out of this world. And there are so many legends of wrestling in Japan. Great Muta/Keiji Mutoh, Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa (RIP), Jushin "Thunder" Liger, Masahiro Chono. I could keep going, but I thought of those few off the top of my head. Anyway, wrestling is considered more of a sport in Japan than it is in the States. They hit harder and it's taken more seriously in Japan. The ring psychology in a Japanese match, most of the time, is great. For me, that's key and something else that's missing from a lot of American wrestling. If you're going from move to move, have it make sense. If your finishing move attacks your opponents midsection, for example, then more on the midsection throughout the match so that the finishing move makes sense. Working an arm or a leg or both throughout a match and then hitting a midsection finisher (I'm looking at you, John Morrison) makes no sense.
I'm getting off topic.
The reason I brought up the two different types of fans is because I find myself kind of in between the mark and the smark, I see a lot of interaction between the two and it can be both hilarious and infuriating at the same time.
On the one hand, it's hilarious because I see these people (usually marks) who are so strident with their opinions that they have the answers and that no one else does. This viewpoint is almost always based entirely on emotion and having been in that spot myself, I can relate.
On the other hand, it's infuriating because there are so many smarks who ALSO think they have all the answers or that they know what's going on backstage or how a particular angle is going to be run or how it SHOULD be run. These are the people that aggravate me because they're know-it-alls. They don't really have any FUN watching wrestling like the marks and those of us that fall in between. They're either right and they're happy or they're wrong and they're miserable and they complain about how the business is going downhill. Until they get something right and then it's all about how awesome wrestling it.
Personally, I couldn't stand to be squarely one or the other of mark or smark. How about you? Are you a mark, a smark, neither or both?
Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Hope you enjoyed the read. Have a happy New Year's Eve and be safe everyone. Until next time, take care.
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