What is the worst thing about being an older wrestling fan.

I'm in my mid twenties and recently became quite a big wrestling fan once again but this time around I've found a couple of things that have annoyed me about being a fan but I wasn't sure which was worse so I thought I'd ask you guys.

The choices:

1. Losing the magic: As a kid I never questioned wrestling's legitimacy, I didn't ask if it was real or if it was fake I just went with it, I never watched Taker at Wrestlemania with any certainty that he would get the win and I would watch men take chair shots and punches but somehow a week later walk out with a smile on their faces and just enjoy the show without any questions. Now I watch the show and while I enjoy it, I find myself predicting the wins but not because of who is the best or who I like the most but because of the superstars selling power or who needs to be put over or who is jobbing etc. I miss watching a match and thinking anyone could win or without knowing that it's all scripted.

2. The question: "you know it's fake right!?": This is the question I get asked the most and in all honesty the question doesn't really annoy me, it's the tone it's asked in and the look you're given as if you have the brain of a child for liking something that other men my age might not like. They fail to see how stupid this is considering that most of the stuff on television is scripted or "fake" as it were, even reality tv shows come with warnings of being created for entertainment purposes.

3. Hating who gets pushed: Maybe this is just me but as I've gotten older I've become a massive fan of the bad guys of wrestling, as a child I would route for good to triumph over evil and for the white knight to come along and save the day but as I got older and I started to realise that the bad guys were more entertaining. I also started to like the guys who could actually put good matches on instead of just run in and act like they were the Terminator, no selling everything like Ultimate Warrior with a pedigree. The sad thing is that we don't control who gets big in wrestling...the Daniel Bryans of the WWE don't get as big as they should, they might get a title shot but when it comes down to it, it's the John Cena's who get the reward because they appeal to kids and the PG era and they sell t-shirts and figures and all of the other tacky stuff that people buy.

Those are my three reasons to hate being an older fan but please feel free to add your own, I think I'd go with number 2 at the moment as I get it in work quite a lot.

it's still real to me, dammit!


1) John Cena

2) Your favourites returning and they're not as good as you remembered

3) Your favourites still wrestling long after they should be retired and making fools of themselves

Mine probably has to be the fact that it has become more predictable as I can spot who they are pushing and who needs to go over. I.E. if Ryback faces Mark Henry at Wrestlemania I can pretty much guarantee Ryback will win, where as when I was a kid I would have no idea which of these 2 monsters will come out on top.

It is not completely predictable though. I was 100% certain that John Cena would beat The Rock last year...

"you know it's fake right!?"

No, this is an outrage! I'm gonna write a strongly worded letter to Mr McMahon, that is it he is in charge! I don't know what to believe anymore!

Idiots! Bet these people think the likes of TOWIE and made in chelsea are pure reality and not scripted at lot!

dallym wrote:it's still real to me, dammit!


1) John Cena

2) Your favourites returning and they're not as good as you remembered

3) Your favourites still wrestling long after they should be retired and making fools of themselves

I knew someone would post that line haha

John Cena was the person who inspired the third point of us really not choosing who gets the push or the main events. I don't think he's entirely to blame but the issue as a whole is probably to blame for his act being so stale now, when he started with the whole Thuganomics thing he actually had attitude and while I think the whole rapper act was a bit tacky I liked the intensity he had.

The problem is someone came along as said "if you do this or this you can be the face of the company..." and he followed the rules, it was nice though to see CM Punk get big by just speaking his mind and not jumping through hoops. It's just a shame he had to step to the side when The Rock came back so that the kids could have there match.

dallym wrote:it's still real to me, dammit!


1) John Cena

2) Your favourites returning and they're not as good as you remembered
3) Your favourites still wrestling long after they should be retired and making fools of themselves

These 2 for sure , with john cena I actually liked it when he first came on the scene.

I think another thing thats taken the buzz away is the amount of wrestling sites reporting things before they happen, when we were kids, it was jus watching it on a friday night and then satarday morning and that was it, just wait until next week, and if somebody returned we would get a shock, where as these days various sites will report, "so and so has renewed his contract" or "so and so to be on raw this week". I could easily stay away from the sites but ive lost interest in smackdown altoghether but want to keep up to date, so am forced to go on them, and then cant help readin the links.

The other thing is the product isnt the same as what was when we were kids, too much social network references, and not enough emphasis on actual wrestling.

But you know what, i think these are just excuses, i think as we get older we prefer things that remind us of our childhood naturally. Ive got no scientific evidence but just based on personal experience. For example:

When i was a kid i used to watch the mighty morphin power rangers, absoloutly loved it, and as i grew older, all the new series that came after i didnt like at all even though it was the exact same story as the original, just with different characters.

Same with Keenan and Kel, i used to love that to death, n these days my younger cousins watch zack and cody and in all honesty i watch it with them i dont mind it, but i cant help but think this is just a rip off of Keenan and Kel

Finally, in my early teens in was into UFC but as my favourite fighters, ken shamrock and chuck liddel retired i lost interest in it, i still watch it now from time to time, it has evolved alot more from when i used to watch it. Id argue its more competitive now than it was when i used to watch it the fighters are more well rounded. But something inside me still thinks its not as good as the old days.

its the same with my dad and the olden day movies.

so in short, i think we can try and pin point as many things as we can and say its because of this or that, but i think really its because for most of us am sure our childhood days were the happiest days of our lives, and for some reason we naturally regress into those old time memories.

1. Losing the magic-

I think this just happens as you get older but i do mark out at time when you get a genuine suprise or a return

2. Your favourites returning and they're not as good as you remembered -

Again this happens as normally as you have gotten older so have the wrestlers. There arent many who can say they get better with age. Probably shawn michaels is the only one who springs to mind.

3. Your favourites still wrestling long after they should be retired and making fools of themselves

Its a shame when this happens im dreading the almost inevitable Hogan V Bully match.
But its the stuff when you hear or read that makes it seems like there tarnishing a great career. eg. Flair has been blading again

1. Losing the Magic

I do agree with this, however the magic has been brought back to me twice in the last couple of years, both matches having me on the edge of my seat and screaming like a little kid and when the match ended had me celebrating like i do when Brighton score.

Matches were CM Punk vs John Cena - Money in the bank 2011 and The Rock vs John Cena at Wrestle Mania 28.

The worst thing for me is you can't just piledrive your work-mate in the work place, that's frowned upon apparently

Kay Fabe wrote:The worst thing for me is you can't just piledrive your work-mate in the work place, that's frowned upon apparently

I booked time off work today and a girl asked me why I wanted it off and I said so I could go down to London and watch Wrestlemania with my best mate and she looked at me like I had a head injury.

For me, it's the lack of long term booking storylines as there is a PPV per month. I preferred it when it was just the Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series. There was always a long build up in feuds and I wanted to see how the matches panned out after months of build up.

Nowadays, you only get a few week's build up.

Spanish Dave wrote:1. Losing the Magic

I do agree with this, however the magic has been brought back to me twice in the last couple of years, both matches having me on the edge of my seat and screaming like a little kid and when the match ended had me celebrating like i do when Brighton score.

Matches were CM Punk vs John Cena - Money in the bank 2011 and The Rock vs John Cena at Wrestle Mania 28.

I agree with this, I'd also add Daniel Bryan winning the MitB briefcase in recent years.

I know exactly when the magic was drained from me, it was after Punk beat Cena at Summerslam and Del Rio cashed in. Actually its not that, it was Kevin Nash, if that had been me a few years before memories of "Big Sexy" "Diesal" and the NWO would have come flooding back (I know hard to right? But I was a big NWO fan back in the day), instead I sat there probably like every other wrestling fan on the internet these days and thought oh that'll kill Punks momentum.

We've become a bunch of joyless over thinking miseries haven't we. Nothing will ever be good enough for us. And be honest with yourself there...

I have found that to some extent, there is very rarely any happiness in it, but then its easier to discuss memories of happiness and the discontent that cannot match nostalgia.

I certainly have found myself resenting the American IWC (the English members of the IWC are less smarmy) and I found going on Bleacher and the sort less makes wrestling more fun.

Ill reverse this whole discussion and say that the best thing about being an older fan is sitting with your sons watching it and seeing their faces as a huge spot is done in a match or a surprise return happens etc.
Through their magic it brings back what I loved about the whole thing (and I don't even mind when they cheer when Cena beats Punk)

Actually I was at a family meal a few months back, our lot were all as adults and we got talking to a family who had two young boys. I ended up ignoring everyone to discuss wrestling with them, it was great to see the product through there eyes.

The best part was that they were starting to doubt if it was real,no longer believing their parents. I asked them why an adult like me would watch it if it was fake...they looked so chuffed and I was made up to be able to keep the magic going for them for a bit longer.

Hero wrote:Ill reverse this whole discussion and say that the best thing about being an older fan is sitting with your sons watching it and seeing their faces as a huge spot is done in a match or a surprise return happens etc.
Through their magic it brings back what I loved about the whole thing (and I don't even mind when they cheer when Cena beats Punk)

That made me sick in my mouth a little bit

having been a wrestling fan for 36 years now , the worst thing about being a fan now is not having that feeling of ..........................cant wait until next week .

The worst thing about being a fan is the internet. Dirtsheets, spoilers and forums are hard to avoid and when you know something is going to happen, then it happens, it doesnt have the same impact as it did when you were a kid when the suprise element made you mark out.

Kenny wrote:having been a wrestling fan for 36 years now , the worst thing about being a fan now is not having that feeling of ..........................cant wait until next week .

I get that feeling now too and I have only been watching wrestling for about 12 years...ish

Mr H wrote:The worst thing about being a fan is the internet. Dirtsheets, spoilers and forums are hard to avoid and when you know something is going to happen, then it happens, it doesnt have the same impact as it did when you were a kid when the suprise element made you mark out.

Totally agree with this one. I can only wonder what my reaction would have been to Brock Lesnar returning last year had I not known about him signing a deal before the Wrestlemania. As much as I love the discussion and opinions on this site I sometimes wish I never bothered as all the Raw / Smackdown results and shocking incidents are usually mentioned here in all sorts of threads.

The worst thing about being an older fan, is putting up with the new generation gassing on about how great the wrestling was from their time, and that everything before or since has sucked.

I'm sure somewhere out there in 606 land is a late-40's fan. Lurking. Waiting. Waiting for a kindred spirit to come online and sing the praises of Billy Graham, Bruno Sammartino, Don Muraco and Greg Valentine. He'll remind us that Hogan, Macho Man and Warrior were just cartoon plastics that weren't fit to lace Stan Hansen, Magnum TA or Nick Bockwinkel's boots. And he'll be frustrated by a generation of "kids" that champion the "Golden Age" of wrestling but refuse to watch the real Golden Age.

Fast forward 10 years. The early 30 somethings know he's crazy. 1988 (give or take) was the best time for wrestling. The New Generation was awful, and The Attitude Era overrated. It only achieved that many viewing figures because us lot were hanging on, hoping for a return to the good ol'days.

But they're wrong. The Attitude Era was amazing. 20 years of progressive writing culminating in the 4 greatest years of professional wrestling history. It had to end sometime, and it's sucked ever since.

But has it? A new generation will surely soon frequent these forums and tell us that The Attitude Era wasn't all that, and who cares about anything before 1999? Wrestling has been amazing since 2009, we're just all too old to appreciate it. John Morrison will become an underrated could-have-been. The belt should've been slapped on Ziggler two years ago and why wasn't Dean Ambrose called up sooner?

Wash rinse repeat.

Good point well made KV, but I dont think you will ever change that. As a 24 year old I will fight to the death for my right to say that the Attitude Era was the greatest period ever. It will never be beaten and nothing before it could compare. Most people around my age will agree, whereas people of a younger or older generation will disagree.

The same could be said for music though. As a person born in 1988, the music of the 90s will always be the best to me. As will the TV from the 90s. A lot of it is to do with nostalgia etc. I think this also applies to wrestling as well.

Very true Shot 21.
But I think we can both agree, that if you were unfortunate enough to be born at a time when 1995 became your greatest year for wrestling, you missed out.

Agreed. I do remember wrestling before the Attitude Era. I remember the days of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior and Mean Gene doing the interviews, but I just watched these as a fairly young kid without really getting into the storylines (although I still knew Hogan was to be cheered).

It was during the Attitude Era when I became hooked. I genuinely wanted to tune in each week to find out what happened in the Austin / McMahon feud. Or I was really hoping The Rock would finally give Triple H the beating he deserved etc.

I'm still hoping for anyone to give HHH the beating he deserves.
Until I remember Wrestlemania 12.

Shot 21 LCFC wrote:

Mr H wrote:The worst thing about being a fan is the internet. Dirtsheets, spoilers and forums are hard to avoid and when you know something is going to happen, then it happens, it doesnt have the same impact as it did when you were a kid when the suprise element made you mark out.

Totally agree with this one. I can only wonder what my reaction would have been to Brock Lesnar returning last year had I not known about him signing a deal before the Wrestlemania. As much as I love the discussion and opinions on this site I sometimes wish I never bothered as all the Raw / Smackdown results and shocking incidents are usually mentioned here in all sorts of threads.

Precisely. When Cena was stood in the ring on the Raw after Wrestlemania and called out The Rock to personally congratulate him, the crowd were chanting 'Lesnar, Lesnar'. How did they know about that? Thats right - the internet. Lesnar got a huge pop regardless, but imagine how huge it would have been if no one legitimately knew that he had signed with the company. The roof would have blown.

I think the only time in the last few years where i've marked out to something which i didnt already know was going to happen was the CM Punk pipebomb promo. The internet didnt know it was going to happen but when it did happen the internet exploded. Jericho returning at the Rumble was also a surprise hence the massive pop he received. Do you reckon it would have been that big if we knew he was returning at the Rumble?

Angle turning up on TNA was fairly secretive too - everyone thought it was Goldberg debuting (from memeroy)

Adam D wrote:Angle turning up on TNA was fairly secretive too - everyone thought it was Goldberg debuting (from memeroy)

'Memeroy'. Is that the Brummie version of Memory?

The dirtsheets have been going Since the 80s. Just because you didn't know Hogan was going over sergeant slaughter at wrestlemania 7 it doesn't mean it wasn't obvious to someone else!

I don't like it when people blame the sheets/internet for their lack of enjoyment. Nobody is forcing you to read them, and they are entirely avoidable. It's not like there's wrestling news on the front page of the papers or on the news. To find out wrestling spoilers etc you have to go online and look them up.

I enjoy it just as much watching with a critical eye as I did when I had no idea what was going on. It's a completely different experience but just as much fun.

Although I do agree that it's incredibly irritating when people talk about it as being fake. Especially when those same people are often the type who have no desire to question the world around them, and the lies they are told on a daily basis by politicians, marketing people and the media.

I quite like reading articles and discussing wrestling, but the wrestling websites generally want to be there telling people breaking news and the shocking comebacks that are about to happen. Makes it very difficult to read anything because the stuff you dont want to see is given the greater emphasis. I've stopped going on sites on the day of and after events because that makes sense to me, but on a friday before a big PPV I'd like to be able to read about the event without seeing "JERICHO TO RETURN AT RUMBLE" or similar.

Maybe I will change my worst thing to the attitude towards spoilers rather than dirtsheets in general. I have never understood why people are so desperate to read about what is going to happen before it happens. They do it with Soaps in magazines too, its bizarre

But crips you dont need me to tell you that the internet is a whole different animal to what it was in the 80s and even the 90s. It's easy to unknowingly come onto a forum like this one without previously visiting a dirtsheet, and in big bold writing the title of an article reads 'JERICHO TO RETURN'. You can innocently go onto twitter or facebook and come across something you didnt want to see. Its not entirely avoidable. Especially not as avoidable as it was in the 80s and 90s.

Its not only that though. With the growth of the internet comes the growth of the IWC who in many eyes are a cancer in the wrestling world.

We are the cancer of the wrestling world?
Damn.

You got to admit it though, smart fans make it alot less enjoyable!

The problem is as well that people think it's funny to spoil things for other people, the amount of times I'll watch a wrestling video on Youtube and find that the comments will be full of spoilers and one guy called CMPuke who's on nearly every Punk related video and who's only comment ever seem to be "CM Punk sucks".

It happens with everything, there seems to be a fashion of ruining things to try and troll other people, I'll be honest in the past I have looked up spoilers without having any real reason but I've never felt the need to brag about knowing stuff before it happens.

xviperx wrote:The problem is as well that people think it's funny to spoil things for other people, the amount of times I'll watch a wrestling video on Youtube and find that the comments will be full of spoilers and one guy called CMPuke who's on nearly every Punk related video and who's only comment ever seem to be "CM Punk sucks".

It happens with everything, there seems to be a fashion of ruining things to try and troll other people, I'll be honest in the past I have looked up spoilers without having any real reason but I've never felt the need to brag about knowing stuff before it happens.

Most of the wrestling videos I watch, the comments section is usually filled with "WWE sucks...TNA sucks worse...WWE steals TNA's ideas...TNA is full of WWE rejects" garbage.

I don't purposely look up spoilers as I prefer to be surprised, but on the other hand I don't get upset when I stumble on them by acident.

crippledtart wrote:The dirtsheets have been going Since the 80s. Just because you didn't know Hogan was going over sergeant slaughter at wrestlemania 7 it doesn't mean it wasn't obvious to someone else!

I don't like it when people blame the sheets/internet for their lack of enjoyment. Nobody is forcing you to read them, and they are entirely avoidable. It's not like there's wrestling news on the front page of the papers or on the news. To find out wrestling spoilers etc you have to go online and look them up.

I enjoy it just as much watching with a critical eye as I did when I had no idea what was going on. It's a completely different experience but just as much fun.

Although I do agree that it's incredibly irritating when people talk about it as being fake. Especially when those same people are often the type who have no desire to question the world around them, and the lies they are told on a daily basis by politicians, marketing people and the media.

I think it is quite easily to unwittingly stumble on stuff, especially given how people love to post rumours and breaking news the moment they find out about it.

Its probably not the worst thing about being an older wrestling fan, but for me, I think a lot of the sense of occasion has gone, (again, could down to the digital age we now live in), along with the larger-than-life characters you used to get.

Watching videos from the mid-late 90s, I always get a real sense of drama and theatre, both from the crowd reactions and commentators, as well as the wrestlers themselves. It might just be me, but there just aren't any real characters in wrestling anymore...apart from The Undertaker, whose retirement is surely imminent and The Rock who is only a part-timer now.

So many of them now have the clean-cut, muscle-bound looks, but little or no charisma or truly interesting gimmicks.

Again, I think information saturation might be the problem. Back "in the old days" wrestlers had a bit of mystery to them. Now you get lots of behind the scenes coverage, their families get roped into storylines. Personally I find knowing more about them makes them less interesting.

I still enjoy wrestling from a technical point of view, but the storylines just don't seem to matter as much (though granted TNA has doen a pretty good job with the Aces & Eights saga) and the OTT characters and theatrics that originally got me interested have all but disappeared.

I watched 'the secrets of wrestling' on channel 5 a few years ago, far from taking the magic away from me it showed me the art form and skills that SHOULD be required from wrestlers today.

The first time I lost interest in WWE was about 2003/4 the booking was so obvious i could see the next play coming a mile off.

Second when it became a kids show so I switched to TNA which had a more adult theme.