wrestling / Columns

The Great Divide: The War Among Wrestling Fans

February 3, 2015 | Posted by Len Archibald

195 comments. Wow. Honestly, I did not anticipate a piece that dove into WWE’s financial numbers to encourage such a hearty discussion. But it did, and it was a blast (incorrect Q3 numbers, notwithstanding) – so, once again, THANK YOU to all for contributing. And to all who worry that the awesome feedback will get to my head? Don’t worry, if there is ever anything more grounding than 10 years of marriage, well – it’s probably 25 years of it. Thanks again!

The question remains: which brands will commit to creating a private sector pillar of social change, and which will become casualties of their own outdated thinking?
-Simon Mainwaring

I will put it out there point blank: I am not a man of “faith” (no, I am not the kind that will mock or ridicule those who believe.) I consider myself to be a high-functioning sociopath (thanks, Sherlock) and a man of reason, so it would take a literal act of god for me to make any concessions about the existence of a higher power – and yet, I can’t help the numerous occasions in my life where I have witnessed what I consider some form of cosmic justice. After the storm that brewed after the events of the 2015 Royal Rumble, WWE was caught in a literal storm: was the Rumble so universally panned that it incurred the wrath of the universe itself? Did Roman Reigns’ ascent to the top of the WWE card cause some form of rip in the space/time continuum? Will Neil DeGrasse Tyson be RAW’s next guest host?

Of course, none of these things are true, but the events of the past week have unleashed a very noticeable rip of another sort; a rip among fans. I won’t lie – I read the comments from all the articles at 411 and even on the odd occasion engage with the readers. It is fascinating and fun to see all the different memes and jokes – Kevin Nash’s quads and understanding of adjectives have provided several hearty guffaws from yours truly, but there has been something more alarming boiling to the surface. Something that I had experienced during the height of the Monday Night Wars, and even between WWE and TNA fans, but this…is something different.

Instead of making any points about the rift between WWE and its fans, the talent or even the momentum of outside promotions, I instead would like to simply talk to you – all ye fans of this artform. Simply through a question: what is happening to us?

Perhaps it was from the residue of the final remnants of the Territory Days, but anyone that was considered a fan of professional wrestling was seen as a monolithic entity. Even if it was through the tired stereotype of “redneck/man-child who doesn’t know it’s FAKE”, it was pretty much ALL wrestling fans vs. the world. I suppose in some sick way, we have WWE to thank for loosening up that insulting trope – or at least making it more acceptable on a mainstream scale to be a fan as WrestleMania became a pop-culture phenomenon. Even if the base of our fandom was Mid-South, WWE, Jim Crockett or the like – our differences of the STYLE of wrestling we enjoyed did not diminish some level of respect we had for each other, especially when someone from the outside world insulted us for our fandom. I have had conversations with fans of different promotions, and we would have a great time arguing which promoter was more inept and which of their stars were more appealing – but if one person entered the conversation and even made some snide remark about our version of “reality” when it came to wrestling…those same fans would band together to ridicule that outsider until he was dizzy. The outsider was the one who didn’t get it: yes, WE know professional wrestling is not real. We debated that we surmised that individual knew Commando was not a documentary, either (to age myself.)

The Monday Night Wars escalated fan conversation and debate to an unprecedented scale: you were a fan of WWF or WCW. Both sides understood that their chosen promotion was out to accomplish one goal: total domination of the wrestling world and putting the other promotion straight out of business. My place in all of this was more observer than anything – I did not have a side, as I just enjoyed having two awesome promotions firing on all cylinders and would call each promotion out for what they did right and what they failed to capitalize on. Observing my friends in high school hurl the most politically-incorrect insults at each other because of the promotion they backed was for all intents and purposes – awesome. For me – anyways – because it was rare in my early childhood to find others to have these discussions with, and then suddenly, EVERYONE wanted to share their opinions about Austin’s latest trick to defy Vince McMahon or what the New World Order was doing next to wreak havoc on the WCW roster.

But even amongst all the insults, there was still an inkling of respect between fans and a unification when someone decided to insult them for being fans. WCW fans lost their minds when Mankind was tossed off the cell. WWF fans got goosebumps when Goldberg defeated Hogan at the Georgia Dome. What I always gathered from that time was that even if we fans spoke about the boneheaded decisions of the enemy promotion under the guise that we knew WWF and WCW wanted to put each other out of business, we didn’t a) think it was going to actually happen and b) that we didn’t WANT it to happen. It was light vs. dark; Republican vs. Democrat; Jedi vs. Sith – we were under the impression that this was going to go on forever.

I am not quite sure if younger fans truly understand the brevity of the demise of WCW. I am not quite sure if I can place into words the magnitude of March 23, 2001. The sale of WCW to WWF was not just the absorption of WCW as some fans knew it with Ted Turner as the billionaire face of the company – this was the soul of what had been known as Jim Crockett Promotions, the National Wrestling Alliance and Georgia Championship Wrestling – and the history that had been accumulated over decades just suddenly ceasing to exist. WCW represented the last breath of the territory era and the unwritten rules that came from it. Up until then, talent still had somewhere ELSE to go – not only to make a name for themselves if they did not fit within the confines of Vince McMahon’s vision, but to hone their craft and become better performers and learn the nuances of ring psychology.

Arguments between fans of that era had nothing to do with actual business. It was about the performers. It was always about the performers – and from where I sit – that has become the main difference between the fan arguments today, and why we are seeing a new rift in the fanbase and one that has become more archaic and acidic. The nature of being able to debate online anonymously has also caused a direct shift in how we communicate with each other, since it is easier to insult our fellow fan with venom from behind the safety of our computer screens. We are engaged in a new media-based era where we have been institutionalized not to approach issues through rational thought, investigative reporting and open-ended questions where LISTENING to the other side is important – now everything from politics, to how we consume entertainment is black and white and those who shout the loudest only see things in wrong and right. It is about justification of a personal belief system. It is more important to win the argument than to be open to a new point of view.

This state of mind has unfortunately seeped into the professional wrestling debate and has permeated the minds of those who know no better than to mimic the op-ed loudmouths of the day through neat buzzwords and catchphrases. “Hipster”, “Contrarian”, “Smark”, “Mark” and “Sheep” are the new insults; everyone sees things from some form of Ayn Rand self-serving economic point of view. What matters is the financial bottom line of the company, not the overall enjoyment of the audience at hand or vice-versa – what is lost in all of this is the actual debate about the performers.

I concede this is a different era we live in and there is a new breed of fan who has ascended. I am not sure how to define them; I can say with 100% certainty that 20 years ago a talent like Roman Reigns would not have been accepted by the majority of wrestling fans from any promotion to main event WrestleMania. I can also say with 100% certainty that there would not have been much of a debate about the aesthetics of Daniel Bryan’s size being a factor to prevent him from main eventing the same show, simply because his skill would speak for itself – but at the same time, Daniel Bryan would not have been the one who would single-handedly “save” WWE either. In the eyes of the “casual” fan, both performers would have been soundly rejected for some reason. Today’s fan now has financial data and Wikipedia at their disposal but not the life experience or the power of hindsight to really understand the nature of the points they are trying to make when they discuss things like Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels being the lowest drawing WWF Champions. No, it wasn’t their size that hurt the business – in fact, it was their skills that kept WWF afloat. Try being a professional wrestling champion when the promotion you work for just stepped out of its biggest controversy with the United States government and a stigma of performance enhancing drugs looms over everyone’s heads at the tail end of the “Just Say No” era of Reganomics. I feel Stone Cold Steve Austin could have been the WWF Champion in 1995 and it would not have budged the needle that much – times were THAT dark and the negative stigma that surrounded professional wrestling was THAT deep.

Just the same, as much as we cite John Cena’s never-changing character as a reason for the decline in business (and as much as some of that can be justified), I am absolutely stunned that for some reason, we as a collective of fans have not been able to have a true discussion amongst ourselves that – in all fairness and truth – the REAL reason for the decline of business was that the Chris Benoit murder/suicide controversy chased nearly everyone away, and nearly a decade later professional wrestling has still not been able to gain the trust of those fans who feel their eyes were opened to the “evils” of professional wrestling. They have not come back – and justifiably so – who in their right mind would support an industry that breeds such a contemptible human being? Yes, I am aware that we have murderers in all forms and from all industries…it’s just that wrestling has a large enough stigma and has incurred such a negative narrative for such a long period of time that it cannot afford any further hits on its image.

The decline of the number of fans of the artform stateside has been a major problem that most anyone – promotion or fan – has been unwilling to tackle for the longest time. While we wax knowledge about “casual” fans and “hardcore” fans, the truth of the matter is that the numbers actually show that there are not many “casual” or “hardcore” fans left. What is left, really, is the base. And that base set of fans have been split between those who remember what it was like when professional wrestling was super popular and those who have a bare recollection of those days or who have never experienced that time period at all. Just like politics and issues like race relations, what we are experiencing is a generational gap between fans. That gap has created a new culture: before it was wrestling fan vs. non-wrestling fan, now it is just us…blasting each other.

I am not one to make a bold, sweeping generalization of what makes up these sets of fans, and I will not do so. What I will note, though, is that this new war amongst ourselves have effectively turned many of us away from the artform. It used to be that fans would reject a performer or promotion because of talent and talent alone – and now, fans are rejecting performers or promotions because of the fans themselves. The WWE Network has amassed one million subscribers, which is nothing to sneeze at. It is a safe assumption that those who have purchased that network have fallen into one of the two camps of fan who are enamored more with WWE’s archival footage of their and other promotion’s “glory days” and those who have been lured in by being able to access WWE’s current content at an inexpensive price tag who wish to support the promotion they know and know only. While the number is great, it does not diminish the fact that there are much less base fans of the industry now than there was even ten years ago.

Here is where the “anger” of fans today come into play. We have those who are upset over fans who spit venom at anyone not Daniel Bryan, effectively justifying their stance that Bryan is too small, too vanilla and an unrealistic face to carry WWE into the next level of success needed. Some have decided that the base of fans who represent Bryan encompass everything WWE (and specifically Vince McMahon) understand about the “Internet Fan” – they only care about a singular, narrow view of what makes WWE successful and to focus only on that without understanding the scope of the risk of having someone who does not harken back to the “larger than life” personas that WWE boasted will only ruin the company and bring even more ridicule to fans from those who only see wrestling’s “fakeness”. Daniel Bryan, in laymen terms, could never realistically defeat Brock Lesnar in a fight and to feed Lesnar to the smaller competitor would only insult the intelligence of those outsiders who may want to give WWE a try and laugh any fans of the promotion off the planet. These fans represent only a small, niche portion of the industry and will remain (and complain) no matter what.

The other side of the coin notes that a performer like Roman Reigns is just as damaging. Reigns represents a sterilized, corporate ideal of a pretty face and little skill that would insult an outsider’s intelligence just as much because he has not proven capable of being able to combat Lesnar in a contest with his limited offensive set. Roman Reigns represents everything wrong with WWE’s corporate structure that is more concerned with stockholders, ad revenue, sponsorships and public relations than paying fans who actually line WWE’s pockets and have given the promotion the opportunities it afforded to become a publicly-traded conglomerate in the first place. The fans who support Roman Reigns have no inclination to the “performance art” of professional wrestling and represent a fickle, overly simplified sample of fans who will only support WWE when they are popular and will run for the hills once again when the next scandal arrives.

Perhaps the truth lies not in whether either Bryan or Reigns is capable of defeating Brock Lesnar “realistically”, but the fact that Lesnar’s MMA credentials speak for themselves and that The Beast has been portrayed so well as a dominant monster that NEITHER – or for that matter, anyone else on the WWE roster boasts the credentials to take the current WWE Champion down in storyline terms. Is that the fault of the fans who support their chosen performer? Of course not – but it has not stopped both sets of fans to blast each other with insults akin to online debates one will see in a political forum where “Libtards”, “CONservatives”, “Republican’ts” and “DemocRATs” are tossed around like hot garbage, and replaced with insults at neckbeard simpletons who know nothing about the economics of WWE’s business model, or jock-ish bandwagon-jumpers who willingly open their mouths and shovel the shit Vince McMahon feeds them with smiles on their faces. What happened to the unspoken respect we fans had for each other? Caught in the crosshairs are fans who can see the points from both sides, but are willing to exercise the option to take a wait and see approach, or even still, just exercise the option to enjoy wrestling from other promotions. And even THEY have been ridiculed for daring to take part in wrestling outside of Vince McMahon’s universe, not realizing that they enjoy TNA, NJPW, CHIKARA, SHIMMER, Ring of Honor or Lucha Underground not because they hope these promotions will put WWE out of business, but simply because those promotions offer something overall that WWE just does not for them. And that is perfectly within their right.

We talk about WWE painting themselves in a corner often, but we have not realized that we fans have done the same to each other. The irony in all of this – is that we cannibalize ourselves but virtually want the same thing and we are in the same boat. Professional wrestling is still one of the few forms of entertainment that is still stigmatized as “carny”, serving to the lowest common denominator of human intellect and boasting more harm than good in light of the human condition. The story of Jake Roberts and Scott Hall finding a new lease on life in spite of their harsh addictive lifestyles is one of the rare “feel good stories” that come out of the industry, as we have become nearly desensitized to the early deaths of several of those stars with whom we grew up with and idolized. We have been programmed to look for the worst in nearly every corner of professional wrestling and are more apt to respond to scandals and “shoot” stories of how performers negatively felt about other performers or promotions to justify how we may feel about those promotions and performers we are not fans of. We deride live fan reports for being too “smarkish”, opinions of older performers for being “behind the times” and current performers for being “entitled and whiny.” Something got lost in translation. Instead of celebrating what is awesome about professional wrestling – or at worst, finding some form of middle ground – we have accepted to celebrate everything scandalous about the industry, including ourselves. We have not realized that we have become the industry’s worst enemy by not affording to be more inclusive of our own diverse opinions. We push each other out just as much as Vince McMahon pushes out the opinions of those who do not share his philosophies. Strange how that works.

But at the end of the day, we fans hope and yearn for the expansion and acceptance of the industry – not through financial statistics (even though that is a great measurement), but in popular culture. We want to be able to utilize our favorite performers taunts and catchphrases in public and not be ridiculed, or feel we need to hide our fandom. We want professional wrestling to be part of water cooler talk just as much as American Idol, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead are without having those glances like we stumbled out of the shallow end of the gene pool. The acceptance of professional wrestling justifies the acceptance of us as those involved in the human race. We have thoughts and opinions about other – real – important issues as well, and we do not want those opinions slighted because we accept wrestling as a form of entertainment. How many of us may want to get into politics or move up the ladder of corporate success and feel like we are stifled because it is not “cool” to discuss our “wrasslin'” fandom in public?

The truth of the matter is we really should not care about these things. We are free to express ourselves however we wish and we are certainly free to enjoy whatever form of entertainment tickles our fancy. Those of us that are here at 411Mania have chosen professional wrestling – mainly because we are insane (at least speaking for myself) – but also because there is something we can better decipher than what those who are not fans about the artform that is deeper beneath the surface. Even those who are WWE-4-Life have a deep-seated appreciation of the style that WWE brings to Western culture that those who would rather be entertained by the NFL do not fully understand. It is easy to talk about football in the United States – or Hockey in Canada – or Futbol or Rugby anywhere else in the world because that is a part of the accepted cultural dialogue. Professional wrestling? That is a wing of society that is still “underground” and cultish by nature; no different than how some feel about the Tea Party or the Black Panther movement. Sure, people are free to discuss those matters, but a good majority will simply approach those who support such movements with sideway glances because (right or wrong) of the mainstream stigma given to them. We have been fed how to feel about such things without having a right to be independently minded. It is a flaw of all forms of individualized thought we as a race of humans have struggled with since we discovered fire…Now that we have it, what is the best way to utilize it? We all have an idea – that is based out of the overall good of humanity, but not everyone is going to agree with it. We can’t please everyone.

I discovered 411Mania.com as a green and black Geosite in 1999, upon the discovery that Stone Cold Steve Austin had become injured (ah, the great Rikishi debate – did he really “do it for The Rock?”) From there, I found a whole slew of like-minded individuals – not in that we agreed about everything that we liked about wrestling, but simply the fact that we liked professional wrestling, PERIOD – and this site has been my go-to and website beacon for all things wrestling since. I have seen Ashish and Larry make changes and grow the site – some changes universally accepted – some universally panned (the vocal displeasure at new website design doesn’t hold a candle to the “The Great 411Mania Exodus”, for those who remember.) One thing that has been consistent is that the site has lived and died by us socially maladjusted wrestling fans – that have expanded to socially maladjusted music, movie, comic and MMA fans (and political junkies for a time.) Even if we did not agree about the direction of professional wrestling, it was prevalent that we were unified about our sense of fandom. Now that we have more options to get our wrestling fix outside of WWE popping out of the woodwork, there is more to debate, more dream matches to consider between performers (I still want Nakamura vs. Lesnar!) and more opportunities to show the world that professional wrestling is more than just men and women grappling in tights.

Do not let the events of the 2015 Royal Rumble, the treatment of Daniel Bryan or Roman Reigns, or the fandom behind the two performers sour you on the artform. Do not let WWE rest on their laurels and feel they are the only game in town. Do not let your personal feelings of Dixie Carter hinder your enjoyment of the work the performers in TNA give you. Do not let the language barrier stop you from discovering New Japan or AAA. Do not let the production values or output of fans stop you from checking out Ring of Honor or Lucha Underground. Do not let how others feel about women stop you from giving SHIMMER a look. Do not let the over the top ridiculousness of CHIKARA prevent you from declaring your undying love for it. And do not allow me, any writer from this or any website, or any other fan belittle you for liking what you like about professional wrestling for WHY you like it. The only thing that will “kill” this industry is us. If there is ever a time that we as a collective of fans need to form some sort of unified front – even if we have different opinions about what could make the artform more accessible to the rest of the world, it is right now. As much as it does not look like it, the industry is changing right before our eyes. Instead of treating each other with the clichéd tropes that non-wrestling fans expect us to, perhaps it is time we embrace everything that is amazing about the artform and learn to re-discover what got us hooked in the first place. It wasn’t the fans. It was the performers. It was always the performers.

For me, it is a tough pill to swallow, but the only thing I have to go off to expect a turnaround for professional wrestling is “faith”. And faith in the professional wrestling fan. Cosmic justice, indeed.

Len Archibald is the former Executive Director of the Northwest Ohio Independent Film Festival, and is a current movie reviewer for WLIO in Lima, Ohio.

Agree or disagree with me? Let me know on Twitter!
Follow @THELenArchibald

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