After finding out wrestling wasn't real

[AnthonyM4]

After you found out wrestling wasn't a real combat sport, did you think about not wanting to watch it anymore? I'm sure you have heard people say "oh I watched wrestling until I found out it was fake". These people probably don't go on this board. For the people that do, did you consider not wanting to watch after you found out it was fake?

Of course unlike non-fans we know that it's a lot more real than they think because of what wrestlers go through. For the record, I didn't think to stop watching.

 

[Davi323]

Oh, I had that bubble burst within the first two weeks of watching it when I was little kid watching All American Wrestling on the USA network, back when cable boxes had dials instead of remotes, lol..We ended up making a game out of it. My brothers and I would try to figure out what the storylines were going to be ahead of time, in essence, we were mini-bookers, although we had no idea that a booker was even a real word yet. We even noticed a trend when it came to early WWF PPVs. For the first, oh, five years or so, whenever they showed the graphics where they show who was wrestling who on the PPV, you could normally tell who the winner was going to be by who was in front of the graphic. The wrestler or team that was slightly overlaid on top of the other (they almost always intersected) would win most of the time. They pretty much gave the results away ahead of time, if you knew what to look for. I would say it probably had about an 80-85% accuracy.

 

[Defekt]

I started watching wrestling at 12, and had no idea it wasn't real at first. About 2 weeks after I started watching, a teacher overheard me talking about it and gave me the news.

At first I didn't believe it was scripted, but slowly accepted it. Although, no one ever explained to me exactly how it was fake, so I still fell for the better storylines.

I remember "The Real JJ" storyline, where The Roadie supposedly sang offstage for Jeff Jarrett. The WWE showed footage that made it look like Jarret's lips were out of sync with the vocals, but I had the performance on tape and when I re-watched it, that wasn't the case.

After that I assumed all the storylines were fake, but I didn't really care.

 

[ItWasTyped.com]

After I finally accepted that wrestling was scripted, I still insisted to all my friends that it was real. I wanted to keep up the illusion for everyone else, even if I knew the truth!

 

[AnthonyM4]

I think nowadays people that watch wrestling know it's not a real combat sport, but they watch it because it's good entertainment and it's a fun show. There is a good story to it as a friend once said when I asked why he prefers wrestling over boxing(this was way before ufc became popular). I'm talking about adult fans anyway. Some of the kids that watch it might think it's real, but hopefully they won't stop when they find out the fighting isn't real and accept it for what it is.

 

[Skairipa Matrix]

i had my bubble burst when i was watching some special thing on tv showing the secrects behind wrestling but i never stopped watching and i was still just as into it if not more i was a little kid i loved everything about the business! to this day i still watch wrestling i never stopped and never will only difference is now i know alot more about it and now i feel like i could run the show alot better (which in some ways i could...)

 

[RavenChaos21]

A girl that I no longer hang with inadvertently exposed me to the "falseness," behind wrestling. After that I still watched it but I watched with more attention to detail. I still love the story-lines and everything that the wrestlers do for the business but I am no longer blind to the staged portions of it. Truth be told I am happy and a little sad about that but life goes on.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

Oh what a tale I have to tell you guys:

After my bubble was pooped in a matter of seconds, my world went from the enjoyment of seeing the red colors of Raw, to the blinding rays of the sun as I began to mindlessly jog for the first time in a decade. Soon the posters of John Cena and Triple H changed to posters of indecent women. I ceased to happily eat my fruity pebbles in the morning and switched to broccoli. Soon women began flocking towards me... as I sat down with the depression sunk in, one of them sexually advanced on top of me. After that shocking experience, it repeated itself again, and I found myself going to the gym and leaving my basement. One night, a miracle happened, it blasted into my mind that I could still enjoy wrestling knowing it was scripted. Just as another women was sexually advancing on me it dawned upon me that Smackdown was on, I screamed "RKO" out loud and preceded to give her an Attitude Adjustment onto the hood of my car, left her for dead outside, got my Fruity Pebbles and eagerly turned on Smackdown.
---------------
Now back to the truth

Anyway speaking realistically I wasn't too much hurt by it. I knew from day one that it was fake, but so was just about anything that people may find entertaining (except sports). I accepted that it was part of the media that we have all come to know and love and continued to be a fan. If it's something that you enjoy than it doesn't matter what people think of you for it.

 

[RyanAn]

I relentlessly defending the truthiness of pro wrestling for years and years. I knew that Undertaker wasn't a dead guy and I knew that I.R.S. probably wasn't a tax accountant AND a pro wrestler - but I knew that the effort put on by these guys was 100% real. Never give up. Live the dream! Being involved in the independent wrestling scene for awhile, I can without question let you know that people do get hurt and if you want to step in the ring with some of my friends - have at it!

 

[DirtyD79]

I got into wrestling a little later when I was about 10, so I kinda already knew the gimmicks weren't real. I mean come on Voodoo Witch Doctors? Escaped convicts? Vikings? Zombies? I didn't still think the beatdowns and matches are real though. Evetually I figured it out and I did stop watching wrestling for a while although that was only part of it. The other part of it was the stupidity coming out of WWF and WCW at the time with the whole Dungeon of Doom Saturday Morning cartoon bullshit.

 

[mrjoe94]

I was hardly effected by it, at the time i watched some show that treated the whole affair like revealing magic tricks. I wasn't effected by that specifically it was the fact that it got boring and Shawn Michaels retired. I watch it now though, have been since the rock came back this year.

 

[Rockyfolifebo!!!]

I found out via the internet. Period. I started watching in about 1998-9. I was about four then. In 2005, I was obsessed with Mysterio. So I went to the internet, and did research on him. Then I found out his REAL name was Oscar. Me (an 11 year kid at the time) was thinking, "no, his name is Rey!". Then I started finding out all this weird shit like Kane and Undertaker were normal people, with normal names, and weren't really brothers. Plus, I started finding out about terms like "kayfabe" and "blading". It broke my heart, but at the same time, I still loved the wrestling industry and still do today! Also, I since I had started learning all of this new information, I wanted to know more! What does (insert name) look like without a mask? What's (insert name) real name? I worked all the way up to finding sites like Wrestlezone. Here, I found that other people who knew wrestling was fake, knew inside terms, and knew all about the business hold discussions on a variety of wrestling related topics. So, in a way, I'm sad that I found out it was fake, but very happy too! lol

 

[¡Roján!]

Back in the heyday of nursery when, the alphabet was a paradox and fish fingers were supper, I do remember that faithful date when Mr. Rohan Sr. and Mrs. Rohan Sr's wife sat me down on my inflatable Thomas the tank engine. The conversation was hazy, but I imagine the conversation going down something like this:

''Rohan, son, there's a few things you should know.''
''Pokémon.''
''Son, there are three things that are hidden from young seedlings like you. We... we're different, son. We allow free knowledge, we allow you to be curious. There shall be no conspiracies here.''
''Yu-Gi-Oh.''
''Son, there are three things in life that are fake...''
''Yo-yo''
''Son, pay attention this is serious.''
''...''
''Joan Rivers' face, wrestling and Tom Cruise's manliness.''

Needless to say, I was shattered. Tom Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman, what the hell was he playing at. I never lived the same way. Trees were suddenly orange, rivers were suddenly lava and water tasted better than orange juice. Five years went on, thing were still shaky in my household. Minority Report was released but, no CGI could fill the void. Then, out of the blue, Tom married a cross-dresser. Karl Holmes was the name, I think. I was happy again. I lived to be a free child.

Now, we flashforward to 2012. And, my dear friend AnthonyM4 poses this question to me. I don't know how to answer. I always watched wrestling, bar no Tom Cruise appearances, obviously. The fact that it is fake, doesn't bother me, at all. CSI: Miami's fake, yet is is one of the most popular shows on TV. I do hate the stupid reputation we wrasslin' fans get, ipso facto I'm in the closet about being one in public. Yeah, Tom Cruise, me too.

 

[SLE]

I was 10 when I first started watching wrestling I think I believed it was real the couple of months but then I found out that when the wrestlers bleed they used razer blades to make themselfs bleed or that it was scripted and everything was planned out on what they say and who would win. But when I found out I still watched I actually did stop watching wrestling for a while but I just started getting back into watching it again. my family thinks I dont watch it anymore but I do. I was the only one in my family that actually liked wrestling.

 

[The Eighties]

Some of the magic is lost when you find out, even though in truth you always know, just when you are young you explain things away in order to keep the illusion.

Once I accepted it I simply became interested in how the business worked and appreciated the skill it took to be a wrestler and have great matches, as well as simply enjoying the characters and angles, basically I found a different way to enjoy it so to speak.

 

[Suibon]

When I first learned that pro wrestling is scripted, I asked 'I guess having psychos in your roster (Kane, Orton, Booker T) does seem a bit illogical, but what about the blood? Surely you can't fake those wounds?'

To which my interlocutor revealed that people usually blade themselves; the blood in most cases is legit, and they are really spilling copious amounts of blood on the ring.

To which I replied: 'WTF? Are they masochists or something? What kind of person would legitimately want to see blood oozing out of his forehead other than a masochist? You must be lying to me.'

Later on I found out that they really did blade themselves when blading was still possible.
​

 

[Jackal960]

At first, I thought there was no point of watching wrestling again. I felt that I was fooled. I loved the gimmicks, I thought the Wild Samoans were really wild and The Animal Steele was really "not well". So thinking they were real was making it more fun. But when you learn it isn't real evetually you get over it, you still appreciate they put their body on the line and make their characters as beleivable as they could. You still enjoy the storylines, and the wrestling.

And to this day, when my friends try to convince me not to watch wrestling because it isn't real, I just open Mankind vs Taker HIAC. There are things that words can't explain to dumb people who think they know better than you...

 

[M]

I learnt of pro wrestling through the WWF game on the original playstation "SmackDown!", was immediately obsessed by all the action going on and started watching the TV program religiously.

I started connecting the dots myself actually, i looked at all the moves and the finishers and was always like "why in the blue hell would a pedigree even hurt?" and "why is it so hard to raise a shoulder off the mat, and why the fuck does lifting a leg have anything to do with it?"
I actually think it was a cage match where i realised it was fake, i remember shouting at the TV about how easy it would be to just race up the cage as soon as the bell went, and if i could do it it 2 seconds, why did it take these "trained professionals" over a minute?
my reaction to the realisation was just a lot of anger towards the realism of the product, I actually stopped watching for a while just due to how stupid the idea of an Irish whip is, if you were being thrown hard enough to bounce back off the ropes, why would they not stop themselves every time? Common-sense just seemed lost after that..

I got over that whole thing pretty soon though and got dragged back into it through another video game, so i guess it was just the need to know who the hell i was playing as was stronger than the urge to get pissed off at the fakeness of the shows. Funny how that works.

 

[Khalifa]

I was told before I even watched one show that it was fake. My parents did not want me to watch it at all so they told me flat out it was fake. That didn't stop me though, everytime I went to the video store I wanted to get WCW videos but everytime Mum would say no because it was "bad influence". After I told her how is it a bad influence if it's fake she let me get them. 10 years later I am still into wrestling.

 

[Uproar]

I was first in to WWE at around the age of 4 or 5. Whenever i made my first 'friend' who's parents had no concern for his mental well being watching men stride around the wring in tights However it was only a few years later i really got in to it, and had the lovely grandparent who not only told me Santa wasn't real but WWE is not even real...pssh, what does he know, santa got me a stocking this year and wrestling still has injuries, so it's as real as it's ever been in many ways.

However i was not dissapointed when i found out because the things they do...really does cause strain on their bodies, but pulling punches and expecting the falls are not. So not too fussed and never thought about not watching it again. It's entertainment for 2 days of the week so i'm happy

 

[Sparky]

I knew that wrestling was fake before I watched it for the first time. I see it as no different to Soap tv shows, So if people can love home and away, Why can't I love to watch wrestling? The thought of not watching something because it was fake never crossed my mind. I do find myself sticking up for wrestling though, when someone really gets injured and people think it's fake.

 

[TheOneTheyCallOn]

I found out it wasn't real sometime around Wrestlemania 4 or 5, and honestly it didn't bother me one bit, in fact it made me want to learn more about how things are done, why they are done, etc. Eventually I started analyzing story lines and characters and at one point became pretty good at predicting what may happen.

Also as a person that has stepped into the squared circle, I always say 'yes it may be fake, but it's more real then people give it credit for'

 

[FlairFan2003]

My dad told me it was fake from day one, although there was a point where I thought the wrestlers really disliked each other when feuding, I had been watching regularly a year or so and was maybe 11 or 12.

In 1988 I realized that the matches were not only not real but they were choreographed and in fact the wrestlers did the same match over and over while on the house show circuit. My dad and I saw an NWA show main evented by a Ric Flair-Barry Whyndam vs Dusty Rhodes-Lex Luger tag match. A month later while in Vegas my dad went to a show where the same main event took place and told me after he recognized many of the move sets and the finish was exactly the same.

I first learned about fake crowd noise in 1992 at a WWE house show. I never knew they dubbed in crowd noise when showing taped matches.

 

[JacobTrinchera]

There are people who thought wrestling was real? That's just sad. There's never been a presentation of wrestling that came off as anything "realistic" and that's why I liked it. I always looked at it like comic book characters that had come to life.

 

[sollecks]

l have been watching wrestling for over 20 yrs i don't remember ever thinking it was completely real and over the yrs i seen more and more how it was done and now when some one asks me "why you watch that shit you know it's not real right?" i say if i need to justify why i watch a choreographed ballet wrapped in a gossamer of kayfabe worked shoots bad acting and script writers..might as well turn off the t.v

The truth is i believed in it till i was about 12 knowing what i know now..i only love it more.
I learned what a heat machine was from going to wrestling tapings and the announcer would say now everyone cheer real loud for 2 minutes..now everyone boo real loud for 2 minutes..I remember being confused why it was tuesday morning and i was at a wcw saturday night show..that wouldn't be on t.v for a month..