wrestling is dirty

I was thinking about a particular part of a promo from years ago and I kind of think that heyman is right......if I remember the quote correctly "you've made wrestling a dirty word vince, a dirty word"

and he's right wrestling nowadays is something you watch as a kid but as you grow up people expect you to grow out of it like growing out of Barbie dolls (love you ken) or batman. its looked at like its a thing for kids but if you watch it as an adult you are perceived to be weird or gay in some circles for liking wrestling in your 20's, 30's, 40's etc when actually it is because we still enjoy the story telling and characters.

yet years ago in the late 90s everybody watched it and it was the talk of the workplace ooooo did you see what Austin did to McMahon last night?. whereas nowadays you can go a week without looking at spoilers and no one at work would even mention wrestling or if they do its in a degrading way like "this is like that wwf wrestling haha" and also the ratings for raw in the last couple of years has been around 3.0's and smackdown 2.0' etc whereas in the late 90's they probably got 5.0 etc for raw. so why has wrestling dropped off the radar and become a dirty word to mention to someone casually?. I cant get my head around it ok its more p.g now and not as daring but society nowadays wouldn't accept having sandman put on a cross at ringside or bossman being hung from the cell. imagine the uproar?

so I want to ask you people in 606v2 why in your opinion has wrestling declined and become a "dirty" word?

I'm not as majorly concerned about the ratings these days, many on this site and others will say ratings are still the major goal and you'd be hard pressed to disagree but I'm not convinced the same amount of people still watch it, with Tivo, online streams and YouTube/Daily Motion and plenty of other ways to watch/catch up these days I don't think its unrealistic to believe that more people watch Wrestling than the 2.5s/3s that RAW get

Is Wrestling as good now as it was in the 90s? In my opinion No, for me the greatest era was the Golden Age of the 80s but RAW peaked from 97-99 and although there was a lot of crap there was also an edge to the show, it wasn't as smooth as it is today and it made it better, everythings done now with the intention to look good, every guy wears see through tights so the lighting off their legs shows up well, the attention to detail from the visual prespective is second to none but for me it lost a bit of soul along the way, sadly I don't think it'll ever return, Wrestling has moved on, Vince and HHH and Stephanie have all moved on

In the 80s and the 90s Vince McMahon was a ruthless Wrestling promoter, in 2013 he sees himself more as a TV producer and strives for that main stream acceptance he enjoyed in the late 90s and ironically enough he got it doing the complete opposite of what he's doing now


Would I let on I watch Wrestling? Not a chance

I don't care if people know I watch wrestling, I wear my CM Punk t-shirt in public a lot...even wore it on a date earlier this month haha

One thing that gets me though is when people who watch Made In Chelsea say stuff like "you know it's not real right!?" and look at me like i've got some sort of head injury.

When I booked my recent holiday the travel agent asked me about New York. I just spoke about the city until my girlfriend mentioned I went for wrestling. Cue awkward shuffling. Afterwards I told her its not something we bring up to normal people. We do live in a world where people watch TOWIE, wrestling is definitely not the evil on our screens.

The intention to never mention "wrestling" is bizarre, so insistent that they are sports entertainers. I do think HHH will be a breath of fresh air in many areas, the reported changes he seems to make are more wrestling-centric. I think he'll be desperate to have his own era of success due to his own ambition, thus he may make more drastic moves, whereas Vince has achieved the big things and doesnt have the challenge to mount anymore.

I've at some point or another told just about all my mates i watch wrestling, and luckily have the debate skills to put down all their retorts and criticisms, and as said above with most of them liking Made in Chelsea and TOWIE i feel no shame in the spandex ballet

I think the OP hit the nail on the head as to why wrestling has become something of a shameful secret (though not as bad as admitting you watch soap operas or reality TV shows).

Though never a big fan until recently, I did catch the odd show back in the mid-late 90s and can remember a lot of it being darker and edgier (in addition to the usual daftness). It just felt a lot more grown up back then.

The very fact the promoters are now primarily targeting kids / families has meant the violence, bad language, imagery etc. has had to be toned down...which for a form of entertainment which is based around people beating the crap out of each other, is faintly ludicrous.

Basically it IS more child-friendly and so is seen more as childrens' entertainment, rather than something intelligent adults would watch.

The one real saving grace however, is that the actual wrestling has become more inventive and spectacular...possibly in an effort to make up for the neutered theatrics.

While the storylines may be baffling and some of the acting laughable, a good wrestling match is still entertaining on a purely technical level, if you can appreciate the skill involved.