AHC: Make professional wrestling stereotypically associated with the left wing and/or progressivism.

If it instead of becoming more scripted it became more of an actual sport following Greco-Roman competition rather than ridiculous personalities in morality plays it would a least be politically neutral with some athletes being liberal and others being conservative.

Probably wouldn't be as popular but still.

For the way I understand it the reason pro wrestling went the showman route is that they couldn't compete five or six times a week on the circus circuit and not suffer serious fatigue/injuries. Things started to change at first with gentlemen agreements like 'I'll win two this week and you'll win two' and it gradually morphed to scripted matches and then several stars worked out they could make more money by playing characters or over the top versions of themselves.

I think Gorgeous George in the US was one of the earlier pioneers of this, as his name suggested he played up a pretty boy character.
 
For the way I understand it the reason pro wrestling went the showman route is that they couldn't compete five or six times a week on the circus circuit and not suffer serious fatigue/injuries. Things started to change at first with gentlemen agreements like 'I'll win two this week and you'll win two' and it gradually morphed to scripted matches and then several stars worked out they could make more money by playing characters or over the top versions of themselves.

I think Gorgeous George in the US was one of the earlier pioneers of this, as his name suggested he played up a pretty boy character.

Also because old school catch-as-catch-can matches could last for hours; that said, it wouldn't take much for Lou Thesz to pioneer mixed martial arts, since many of his overseas experiences could've ended that way. Speaking of Gorgeous George though, he actually met a young Muhammad Ali IRL, and he was a great influence on Ali's narcissistic, trash-talking persona, by Ali's own admission. Maybe, Gorgeous George lives long enough to witness Muhammad Ali's rise to prominence, they reconnect, and they come up with something that mixes George's penchant for the theatrical and Ali's own views, but the CIA would probably be all over anything involving a civil rights crusader who's also a member of a black supremacist cult, and a guy who made a career out of playing a flamboyant character.
 
For the way I understand it the reason pro wrestling went the showman route is that they couldn't compete five or six times a week on the circus circuit and not suffer serious fatigue/injuries. Things started to change at first with gentlemen agreements like 'I'll win two this week and you'll win two' and it gradually morphed to scripted matches and then several stars worked out they could make more money by playing characters or over the top versions of themselves.

I think Gorgeous George in the US was one of the earlier pioneers of this, as his name suggested he played up a pretty boy character.

The origin of pro-wrestling, as we know it, wasn’t actually catch-as-catch wrestling, but catch-as-catch challenges were added to carnival strongmen in order to spice up the limited action involved in the strongman attractions. He would challenge anyone to beat him in the ring, or even to last 10 minutes. Challengers almost never won the prize money, since the strongman had helpers who would cheat to ensure his victory. Eventually, carnies realized they could make more money off the crowd than the entry fees of the fighters. They started accepting wagers on the fights, which were always fixed.

Let me introduce you to carny talk :


In wrestling terms wrestlers would speak carny in the ring when they wanted to “call spots” – tell each other what moves they wanted to do next – If wrestler A was telling wrestler B he wanted to do a clothesline followed by a bodyslam, he’d really say something like “Lizzine slizzam” in a quiet manner whilst in a headlock, concealing themselves from the fans. Today wrestlers often expose themselves on camera by not speaking carny, even if a lot of surviving wrestlespeak, codewords and traditions directly originate from carny times, like the hooker and shooter or lingo like kayfabe, jobbing, mark, smark, shoot, etc.

A common way wrestlers who were carnies would greet each other would be with a weak hand shake. This showed each other that they were in on the sham. Any mark who shook the hand was more likely to do a manly handshake to prove their toughness and thus revealing that they weren’t insiders and needed to be hidden from any wrestler speak by using carny around them.

"Hooker,” the autobiography of Lou Thesz is a fascinating read to learn more about this early era alongside autobiographies and books written by of famous old times strongmen.
 
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What boggles my mind, is that they kept said sham up for more or less a century, even when gimmicks had gotten completely out of hand and everyone knew wrestling was more theater/stunt work than sport. Like, everyone knows magicians do not actually possess magic powers, but this doesn't stop people from admiring the talent behind their tricks and enjoying their shows, and the same can be said for every other form of entertainment that originates from the traveling circus.

Trying to beat up Mark Calaway is not something most sane people would ever try to do, after all - he may be a middle aged biker rather than an undead avatar of Death itself, but the shit he did in the ring, you have to be tough as nails to even contemplate doing what he did, regardless.
 
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What boggles my mind, is that they kept said sham up for more or less a century, even when gimmicks had gotten completely out of hand and everyone knew wrestling was more theater/stunt work than sport. Like, everyone knows magicians do not actually possess magic powers, but this doesn't stop people from admiring the talent behind their tricks and enjoying their shows, and the same can be said for every other form of entertainment that originates from the traveling circus.

Trying to beat up Mark Calaway is not something most sane people would ever try to do, after all - he may be a middle aged biker rather than an undead avatar of Death itself, but the shit he did in the ring, you have to be tough as nails to even contemplate doing what he did, regardless.

Yeah one problems ECW faced in its heyday was convincing TV executives it wasn't 'real' because it was more hard hitting/adult
 
Yeah one problems ECW faced in its heyday was convincing TV executives it wasn't 'real' because it was more hard hitting/adult

To be honest, the fact that they were following a (loose) script might have made the difference between life and death for many ECW performers.

Quite literally.

I mean, would you ever dare go up against New Jack in a real fight where nothing at all is prohibited? That fucking psychopath would've probably enjoyed cutting someone's bowels open.
 
To be honest, the fact that they were following a (loose) script might have made the difference between life and death for many ECW performers.

Quite literally.

I mean, would you ever dare go up against New Jack in a real fight where nothing at all is prohibited? That fucking psychopath would've probably enjoyed cutting someone's bowels open.

Hell no! New Jack is the one ECW guy that makes me think 'Why Paul? Why!'
 
To be honest, Japanese companies tend to be kind of insular, whatever they specialize in - it's one of the reasons why K-Pop was able to make it big in the West while J-Pop actually lost popularity even among weeaboos: despite all their mistakes (up to and including some very racist and/or sexist shit) K-Pop companies were/are more than willing to exploit new media for all its worth and take risks in the name of profit, while J-Pop companies still think we're in 1999.

Like, Stardom seems to be by far the most gaijin-friendly wrestling promotion in Japan (for more or less the same reasons why Riho gets cheered like crazy whenever she's on AEW) but even them, I had to give up on checking them out because finding anything about them online is either very expensive or very hard. I also find it darkly amusing how Japan's got the best women's wrestling in the world, despite all its gender-related issues, while the relatively more egalitarian West lagged behind until just a few years ago, and all because of the nefarious influence of just two people - namely, Mildred Burke's shite husband and the even more shite Fabulous Moolah who, unsuprisingly, got along quite well with fellow trash human being Vince McMahon.

this. so much this. when i see younger fans always boast about "oh wow, women are main eventing wrestlemania, and a trans person is in AEW, so progressive!! becky lynch and bailey are so good in the ring!!" when i, personally, am not inpressed at all with them, cause i've already seen the likes of manami toyota, aja kong, akira hokuto, sara del rey, cheerleader melissa and awesome kong wrestle way before this whole "diversity and equality" thing became a trend (which, personally, i find it sad and hypocritical that it took this to be a popular trend for women and Minorities to be respected by the same people in power who should have changed the world a lot earlier than nowadays.)

same thing with representation in fiction, as japan, despite being very backwards on a lot of things, had shit like sailor moon, ranma, boys love manga, serial experiments lain and other works of fiction that represented women, sexualities and mental health issues way earlier than western fiction did. hell, shun from saint sieya himself is a huge subvertion of manhood, that character's message being "it's okay to be openly gentle and sensitive when you're a man." hokuto no ken, berserk and ashita no joe often showed manly men being reduced to emotional wrecks, experiencing lots of mental health issues and crying a lot and showing their love and emotions to one another, while jojo is perhaps the LGBT community's wet dream anime, and it's loved by everyone, even the straightest of men that i know! if that isn't a perfect example of progressive works existing at the time and being way ahead of ths curve, then i don't know what is...

as for minority representiation...lets say that japan doesn't have a good track record...mr. popo, anyone? (though in video games, they have improved quite a bit. namco, in particular, with eddie gordo, raven, bruce irvin and leroy smith. even in manga, with bleach and its blind dreads-wearing captain and black lagoon and MHA, not to mention golden kamui and its pro-ainu stance... and i nnever thought mr. popo was black. the guy doesn't even look human!)

though then again, there aren't really a lot of black and latino people living in japan, so it's more about unfamiliarity than any outright racist intent.

yeah, that last part of this post should be posted on a different thread than a wrestling thread. i got out of hand, sorry, guys.
 
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That's basically what American-style wrestling is, it's morality plays. It's just not all of it is Christian. European style was based more along the lines of a sporting contest, whereas Japan, particularly NJPW, often has a shonen anime feel.

not to mention that ECW and japanese wrestling also tends to have more realistic characters, in the sense that they aren't cookie cutter babyfaces and heels (except for some gaijins), but morally grey characters who might be good guys but often act heelish or be bad guys but with logical arguements or a tragic backstory which would make them sympathetic.
 
this. so much this. when i see younger fans always boast about "oh wow, women are main eventing wrestlemania, and a trans person is in AEW, so progressive!! becky lynch and bailey are so good in the ring!!" when i, personally, am not inpressed at all with them, cause i've already seen the likes of manami toyota, aja kong, akira hokuto, sara del rey, cheerleader melissa and awesome kong wrestle way before this whole "diversity and equality" thing became a trend (which, personally, i find it sad and hypocritical that it took this to be a popular trend for women and Minorities to be respected by the same people in power who should have changed the world a lot earlier than nowadays.)

same thing with representation in fiction, as japan, despite being very backwards on a lot of things, had shit like sailor moon, ranma, boys love manga, serial experiments lain and other works of fiction that represented women, sexualities and mental health issues way earlier than western fiction did. hell, shun from saint sieya himself is a huge subvertion of manhood, that character's message being "it's okay to be openly gentle and sensitive when you're a man." hokuto no ken, berserk and ashita no joe often showed manly men being reduced to emotional wrecks, experiencing lots of mental health issues and crying a lot and showing their love and emotions to one another, while jojo is perhaps the LGBT community's wet dream anime, and it's loved by everyone, even the straightest of men that i know! if that isn't a perfect example of progressive works existing at the time and being way ahead of ths curve, then i don't know what is...

as for minority representiation...lets say that japan doesn't have a good track record...mr. popo, anyone? (though in video games, they have improved quite a bit. namco, in particular, with eddie gordo, raven, bruce irvin and leroy smith. even in manga, with bleach and its blind dreads-wearing captain and black lagoon and MHA, not to mention golden kamui and its pro-ainu stance... and i nnever thought mr. popo was black. the guy doesn't even look human!)

though then again, there aren't really a lot of black and latino people living in japan, so it's more about unfamiliarity than any outright racist intent.

yeah, that last part of this post should be posted on a different thread than a wrestling thread. i got out of hand, sorry, guys.

Professional wrestling's basically IRL shounen anime, if we got anime as ground-breaking as those you listed, there is no reason why wrestling can't deliver ground-breaking and society-relevant content, either. I may have gotten back into it only recently, due to a simulation/strategy game filled with memetic hazards and a couple upstart promotions seeking to deliver what the WWE doesn't deliver, but I remember when you couldn't even tell where Eddie Guerrero the on-screen loveable rogue ended, and Eddie Guerrero the off-screen recovering drug addict began, that was a redemption arc worthy of a first place on MyAnimeList and several Tumblr reblogs, at the very least. :p
 
Professional wrestling's basically IRL shounen anime, if we got anime as ground-breaking as those you listed, there is no reason why wrestling can't deliver ground-breaking and society-relevant content, either. I may have gotten back into it only recently, due to a simulation/strategy game filled with memetic hazards and a couple upstart promotions seeking to deliver what the WWE doesn't deliver, but I remember when you couldn't even tell where Eddie Guerrero the on-screen loveable rogue ended, and Eddie Guerrero the off-screen recovering drug addict began, that was a redemption arc worthy of a first place on MyAnimeList and several Tumblr reblogs, at the very least. :p

The baby face champion who would pick pocket authority figures. Lie Cheat and Steal was a awesome time.
 
The baby face champion who would pick pocket authority figures. Lie Cheat and Steal was a awesome time.

It makes you feel sorry for Chavo, dude would've been main event material in any other circumstance, if not for his uncle - Eddie reminded me more than once of silent movie stars, had he lived he could've become an actor like The Rock, except more focused on comedy, kind of like Jackie Chan.
 
I would arge that in some ways, at least from a fan perspetive, it already is
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from Business INsider.

See WWE in the bottom left corner. I would argue the reason it isn't more lcosely affiliated is that it seems WWE fans don't show up to the polls. So low-info, left-wing, voters. Don't know the income split but I would assume its below average.
 
Getting a proletarian one, outside of a social revolution, is impossible; because wrestling's fundamental story is about how to survive capitalism, and while class-consciousness might be a lottery ticket gamble, the costs of maintaining it outside of revolutionary situations are very, very, very high.

Which leads to in interesting question: if pro-westling had taken off in the USSR, what sort of stories would it tell to help people survive Communism? Just imagine the dry humour the Soviet citizens applied to their day-to-day lives applied to the physical theater of pro wrestling.

An (admittedly unlikely) scenario suggests itself:

Imagine if you will: during the great depression, the Soviets don't segregate American guest workers so much, allowing the then popular form of pro-wrestling to cross the cultural barrier. Some enterprising members of the traveling theater companies that had gotten started during the 1920s to educate the masses adopt the form as a way of telling muscular morality plays (as well as to popularize the richness of Russian traditional wrestling and physical fitness). To make the heavy handed moral messages go down easier, the Soviet wrestling integrates humour about everyday problems. I imagine fairly bawdy humour, so when Stalin finds out about this form of educational theatre, he finds it very much to his taste. The Bolsheviks then apply the modern technology of cinema to "live" and "uncensored" matches and some are sent out as propaganda to fraternal communist parties elsewhere in the world.

I wonder if Soviet wrestling would inspire Carlie Chaplain to send it up in a movie. A complement to The Great Dictator if you will...

fasquardon
 
In regards to that graph posted a couple posts above, I remember reading that WWE audiences do tend to be very low-income, and also very Hispanic (Rey and Eddie opened up that market in a big way). This might explain the low voter engagement, and low advertiser dollars.

BTW I don't think it's fair to criticize modern Tekken on diversity- they've taken good grounds to make sure their characters aren't offensive, and Bruce and Leroy are actually very well received by the Tekken fandom (which is plurality black in the US). Leroy especially was very well received, at least until he was shown to be massively and intentionally overpowered to sell the character.
 
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BTW I don't think it's fair to criticize modern Tekken on diversity- they've taken good grounds to make sure their characters aren't offensive, and Bruce and Leroy are actually very well received by the Tekken fandom (which is plurality black in the US). Leroy especially was very well received, at least until he was shown to be massively and intentionally overpowered to sell the character.
People forgot, at the time they were the first ever 3d rendered black characthers, people not called them caricatures, for them they were they so coveted representation
 
you read my post wrong. i said that namco were really good with their black characters. in no way i criticized them. what I'm saying is that, since they are little to no non-asian people living in japan, that japanese creators tend to do mistakes out of unfamiliarity (such as the mr. popo case...though, again, one can argue that mr. popo is not human.). combine that with the fact that japanese creators creates art by the japanese, for the japanese (the famous writing tip "write what you know"), and you find a lot of things that doesn't fit well with western values and standards (sexualisation of minors, characters tendencies to be submissive and obedient, group thinking over individual freedom and thought, not taking gender and sexual issues seriously enough etc...).

i'll be honest with you, if i am writing a storyline or just a story in general, i would most likely write what i know, and societal and gender/sexuality issues won't be what i would personally write about, since i know nothing about those subjects and never experienced them. (poverty, psychological issues, nature, moral dilemmas, the street life, video games, movies, manga and sports, on the other hand...). and, frankly, that stuff doesn't really interest me. i watch something in order to escape and laugh at how miserable humanity is...that, and a canadian destroyer from a ladder to a table is more interesting to watch than going on twitter and being bombarded with everyone's opinions at once. but that's just me. I'm not judging you if you like politics and this sort of stuff.

man, it seems that, everytime i post my opinions, i feel like I'm gonna get canceled at every moment because i unknowingly said something that pissed somebody off...
 
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