(07-13-2024 01:26 PM)olliebaba Wrote: Okay, now as far as wrestling. I don't watch it I think it's all fake but my question is if people love it why should I care? I don't, to each his own. My question is: If the whole affair is predetermined on who wins and they follow a script how is a champion chosen? Do any "bad guys" ever win the title? What I see in wrestling are very agile performers. They're the opposite of those tiny gymnast doing somersaults but yet in their hugeness they are actually performing to that degree.
Traditionally the champion was chosen as the guy who has the most drawing power, i.e. can sell tickets. The "booker" (usual a former wrestler) made the matches, thought up the the storyline and chose who "goes over" (wins) in the end. It was up to the wrestlers to fill in the blanks in the ring and get the crowd invested. The whole point was to set up the next show and sell more tickets.
Bad guys can be the champion, "Nature Boy" Ric Flair was a bad guy (heel) for most of his peak. Wrestling was a bunch of regions/territories in those days so it was his job to go to each territory as a traveling "world" champion, make it look like each territory/promotions big fan favorite star had him beat but Flair cheated and escape with his life. Thus when Flair returned it was an even bigger crowd expecting their guy to win the world title beucase he so clearly had Fair beat the previous time.
Flair really mastered this art, which is why he was world champion for so long. Many consider him the greatest ever. The old joke was Flair could go 15 minutes with a broom and "get the broom over". In other words he could wrestle a broom for 15 minutes and he was so clever and skilled he would have the whole crowd cheering wildly for a broom by the end. lol
Usually the "bad guy" is the one who calls the match (calls out the moves in the ring) and its his job to "get heat" (piss off the crowd) and get them behind the good guy to kick his butt. They will cheat, taunt the crowd and work them into a frenzy where at the key moment the good guy will get his big comeback rally and win. Or be clearly about to win before the bad guy got DQ'ed or something.
It was all about listening to the crowd, "working them" and building the crowds emotions up to a "finish".
In the 70's and 80's they sometimes had fans so convinced it was real the bad guys would be in actual danger from the crowd in some cases, they could get cut, stabbed or have their tires slashed. That was considered a badge of honor if you could get the fans that convinced. When I was a kid I once saw Jerry Lawler lose a hair vs hair cage match in Memphis that caused a riot and the "bad guys" had to be escorted from the ring by police in a full sprint to escape the crowd. The crowd was literally going to kill these guys for shaving Lawlers head.
Its not like that at all anymore. Even the most hardcore fans know its just a TV show and most of these guys are friends. But they still get wrapped up in it like rabid fans of other TV shows. It was in the late 90's when they began to admit publicly its just a staged show like Jerry Springer or something.