Do Smarks Ruin Wrestling?

[Downward Spiral]

What is your opinion on the smarks in the wrestling world today? Do you think that we go a little far and are borderline obsessed, or do you think we are an important part of the wrestling world.

From my point of view, we do ruin some aspects of it. For example, we are always craving to hear spoilers that when the actual product comes, we already half know what is going to happen, and that can result in poor opinions of the show. We also set standards way too high on some occasions, and to expect perfection and complain when we don't get it, is a little farfetched. We constantly try to delve into the wrestling world and we just crave it too much in my opinion. We are complaining about it all the time, and this goes back to the fact that we let the fact that we know all backstage info and the like take over before we even see it.

Because all wrestling is not at the peak it once was, I think that we ruin it by complaining so much. Most marks are happy to be watching what they love, but if we constantly live in a world of negativity and spoilers, we will never appreciate it again and the business will suffer from that.

I don't know if anyone else has a different opinion, but that is my view on today's smark. If we just sit back and watch it without having to pick it all apart, you will find that wrestling will appeal to you again, or if not that, there will be less hatred.

So, do you think that smarks keep the business running, or do you think we are taking it too far?

 

[AussieHobo]

I beleive in spoilers ruined wrestling, with spoilers, wrestling has become so predictable and stupid that its hard to watch sometimes, for me, its hard not too look at the spoilers, but if I say, didn;t look at them for this weeks SD, then I can 100% assure you that it would of been so much fucking better than if I watch it wit hthe spoilers, tome, spoilers ruined wrestling, not smarks.

 

[F u Z e]

Smarks? Sorry if it's a dumb question...never heard of smark before.

 

[Abyss]

It basically means spoilers I think...

I think personally that you can choose to read spoilers or not, they are there if you want them.

I can still enjoy Impact if I read the spoilers, in fact it may get me more excited for a certain match.

I think this is where WZ really shines.

 

[A.J.]

Honestly, i do feel we do ruin wrestling at times as we have taken the excitement and not knowing whats going to happen next out of wrestling. I mean we all know whos going to win, what will happen next, etc. At times wrestling can be boring to me as i do have high expections and want to see things chnabge but i still love the show they put on so i still watch. I do feel we ruin it, but what would wretsling be without the IWC huh? i mean i wonder???

 

[Big Fella]

Interesting question.

A few years ago I would have agreed. The insight the average smark has (or feel it has) initially makes the fan feel more involved and I think it grows the intensity and desire to watch for that particular fan. After a while the product gets stale.

I would never describe myself as a smark, but would generally fit the bill. I have been reading rumors and dirt sheets long before the internet.

I really don't watch the current product at all, but still take an interest in what is happening and what is going on as far as back-stage politics and things like that.

Really, having some inside information for such a long period of time has made me love the way the business works, more-so than the current product. So I still take an interest, without watching it on TV, attending shows, or buying tickets. If I had to guess it is worse for Vince McMahon than it is for me.

 

[Kasey]

I've never been into reading detailed spoilers, because I feel it ruins the experience of viewing (not that lousy programming doesn't already accomplish that by itself at times). I still frequent news updates and other stuff in terms of the backstage news, but when I watch an episode, I don't want to know the outcome in advance as it ruins the experience and kind of defeats the purpose for me. As far as whether or not smarks have ruined wrestling? Not a chance in hell. Us diehards are the lifesblood of the business and are still watching even when stuff gets bad. If anything, the advent of the internet wrestling community (news, spoilers, roster moves, ratings reports) forced the companies to get off their asses and up their game from the drudgery that was the early 1990's. I love the internet wrestling community (messageboards and the "dirt sheets") because it was the first time that there was an organized place with news and adequate discussion for an art and business I grew up loving since the age of five. For once, I had the same amount of news resources and exposure my dad and brothers had with legit mainstream sports.

 

[jason420]

Unless you can't see the event in question, there is no excuse in my mind to read spoilers. Spoilers ruin wrestling. Reminds me of the days that Tony Schiavone was giving away Raw results on live Nitros.

Smarks improve wrestling by better defining what we want to see (unless you watch WWE in which case it doesn't matter what the fan wants, only what McMahon feels like shoving down your throat).

Watch Ring Of Honor, I'm a smark and I am ALWAYS surprised at what ROH can throw at me.

 

[X]

I don't know, this is a tough question. There's two really valid points here. Smarks expect far too much out of the product because we became so used to the great ammount of wrestling on TV back in the mid to late 90's (Classic & Attitude WWF, ECW, WCW)and the focus on matches more than on the drama element behind them. Back then your usual PPV lineup consisted of atleast half of the matches being between guys who never really had any drama put behind them, and those matches were great for their own merits, but now a days you never see a match on a PPV without atleast some story behind it. Smarks can ruin things by having far too high expectations, because we (being smarks) expect all of the writer's ideas to be awesome like we think our own would be, but theres a difference in how the writers think because they have to market the product to the masses, not just smarks, who believe it or not don't make up the majority of wrestling fans and fans going to see WWE.

But at the same time, I also blame what happened to wrestling at the end of the 90's, when WCW and ECW collapsed and were bought by WWF, and now that Vince didn't have to worry about the Monday Night Wars or any other sort of competition at all, he grew lazy about the product, fired some writers who were real wrestling fans, and just went for gimmicks, gimmicks, gimmicks. Whether it be the shambles that is the Women's division now being made up of mostly females who have never had any wrestling training or any ability to wrestle, the predictable storylines (yes spoilers do ruin the storyline before it even starts, you should never judge a book by its cover) or the vast ammount of talent that Vince has let go, and the drafting of literally dozens and dozens of wrestlers with little to no charisma at all. They're even running out of gimmick ideas, I thought we were past the days when we had Scotts in kilts, 50's greasers, Samoan monsters (Umaga=Kamala), "rebels" (DX), so on and so on. Not to mention all the stupid racial stereotypes like Cryme Tyme(notice the cool rap spelling)Daivari, Great Khali, so on and so forth.

Sorry if I was ranting there, I just needed to vent about the state of this sport I've got so much love for.

 

[Shocky]

Smarks didn't ruin wrestling, stale products ruined wrestling. If Vince hated the internet, he would go live on every event that he could. Raw live every monday, ECW live on Tuesdays, Smackdown live on fridays. It's feasable and can be done, but he doesn't do it, because the sloppy talent on the latter two demand editing, because they can't make it through a whole match without botching a high spot.

Smarks are not the majority of the wrestling community, i concur with that, but smarks are the ones that are going to be laying out the 40 bucks at each ppv. The monday night ratings don't drop, but PPV buy rates have, because "smarks" won't buy the crap that they put on every 3 weeks.

I don't know why it's so taboo to expect "A" product out of the best promotion out there. You ask people to pay 75 bucks to see the product live, or pay 40 bucks to buy a ppv, then yes, people have a legit concern if they are getting a half assed product.

I think smarks keep the business honest. Lets take TNA for example, purist love it. It's not over main stream yet, and that's why WWE destroyed it when they went head to head. The mainstream crowd will go with the WWE for namesake, but wrestling fans probably watched TNA that night. The mainstream audience is very fickle though. They come and go as they please where the smark stays with the business no matter what. I would guess that if you did a ratio of the TNA Ratings vs. the WWE Ratings, and compare them to PPV buyrates, TNA's percentage would be hire to WWE's, and I think that is impressive.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

I dont believe so. It's pretty easy to avoid spoiler's if you want to. Personally I always read them. Knowing the outcome of a match or who's going to be turning heel does'nt ruin the product for me. I'll watch anyway. If I know a heel turn is coming I'll make a point of watching, if I did'nt know it was happening I might miss it. There's also plent of surprises even if you read every spoiler there is.

 

[Big Ace]

I think they should become live. That's the only solution to stop people from reading the spoilers. It actually hurts them in ratings because if people read the spoilers and the person who posted it gave a bad explanation of what happened and you don't want to see it because it sounded bad, then that's B.S. You're not giving the show a chance by reading what somebody typed up. For all you know, the person that posted it could be a guy who's going to his first show and doesn't know the wrestlers. I don't let that affect me because I still like SmackDown. I don't think we ruin the wrestling world because all we're doing is bad-mouthing it on the computer. I think that would rather have constructive criticism but who cares. It doesn't ruin it for me although it takes out some of the fun especially if there's something big happening.

 

[X]

I think they should become live. That's the only solution to stop people from reading the spoilers. It actually hurts them in ratings because if people read the spoilers and the person who posted it gave a bad explanation of what happened and you don't want to see it because it sounded bad, then that's B.S. You're not giving the show a chance by reading what somebody typed up. For all you know, the person that posted it could be a guy who's going to his first show and doesn't know the wrestlers. I don't let that affect me because I still like SmackDown. I don't think we ruin the wrestling world because all we're doing is bad-mouthing it on the computer. I think that would rather have constructive criticism but who cares. It doesn't ruin it for me although it takes out some of the fun especially if there's something big happening.

Actually, the only spoilers that are live show related are for Smackdown and ECW. Raw is still Live. Because that's not going to stop spoilers, most spoilers come out from leaks or just backstage talk to people like Meltzer. No matter what you do you will never ever stop spoilers, because people will always talk about whats going to happen and find out. I mean, everybody already knew what the Battle of the Billionaires match at WM was going to be before they even announced any of it.

But you do have a point that spoilers can kill the product. I know for a fact that spoilers could've ruined alot of great moments for me. Example: When McMahon was introduced as the Higher Power to the Ministry in mid 99. No one on planet earth so that one coming and when it happened my jaw was hinged to the floor. If i had read a spoiler about that, it would've been a lot less enjoyable.

However, if you already know whats going to happen, it gives you more of a chance to appreciate the match's worth. If they still manage to wow you and surprise you, than you know they've done their job correctly.

 

[Suzymbc]

I hate the term "smark". It makes wrestling fans sound like idiots for being informed. I look at it this way...football / baseball fans know everything there is about their favorite teams. They learn player stats and stay up on team and player news by reading the sports pages every day. How is this any different than a wrestling fan trying to learn as much as they can about their favorite promotions and wrestlers? There are forms of "spoilers" in every major sport to include, inside talks on trades, contracts and game strategies. Because the outcome of a wrestling match is predetermined, it is easy for anyone to learn the outcome of a match before it happens, but those who don't want to know won't read a show spoiler.

The beautiful thing about wrestling is that, if a show is put on well, you will enjoy it whether you can predict the outcome or not. If the show is crappy, you can try to pull any twist and turn in the book and the fans won't buy it. The business needs intelligent fans who are educated on the wrestlers and the type of product that they prefer. I firmly believe that some wrestlers never would have made it in the larger promotions if they didn't have the support of the dedicated indy circuit fans who followed them through the ranks. If a "smark" is a fan who educates themselves about the wrestlers and promotions they support with their hard-earned dollars, and in turn has an opinion about what they would like to see in that product in return, then I am proud to be a smark.

 

[yoscoot5]

The smark question i've asked myself many times. Spoilers, yes and no, they do ruin the product for maybe a average wrestling fan, but a die hard will watch any way. take away the spoilers and be honest many of us could still guess the outcome of 80% of the matches b/c quite frankly were just not that dumb. So say the attitude era in a way was the best and worst for wrestling. Monday nigh war was stong we got introduced to a new breed of talent, and the matches of this time were grade A. The problem was we saw ppv matches every monday, I mean honestly when was the last title change on free tv?? We saw ppv matches and we got use to it. People complain about the state of wrestling today??? I would have loved to see these fans today go back in time and watch superstars and see ultimate warroir destroy some nobody in 30 secs, another superstar vs a jobber, borther love show then main event next hogan jobber vs another jobber. Even at that state of wrestling I watched every time I could. Were just all pissed b/c for a few years we were given gold and now are expected to watch copper and like it. Its just that easy, most smarks came from the attitude era, and that explains it all. So to sum up all my rambleing here i go...
WWE-could be better, but could be worst
Tna-same as the first just needs more tv time to truely judge
Spoilers-Just dont read them
All us smarks-Stop complaining b/c 1st shits not about to change soon, 2nd It could be alot worst, and finally If any reason i have stated in my whole writing dosn't agree with you maybe your really just the next wrestling god and just don't know it yet, and your mission in life is to train, get signed by the wwe, become champ, and say I complained b/c I could do it better. Out

-Scoot-

 

[Becool420]

i beleive that spoilers may help and may ruin certain things.. a perfect example of this is the stone cold return last night... if i didnt see the spoiler pics of austin and lashley and umaga... for wm23... when i watched raw last night and saw austin.. i would have been going NUTS seeing austin come in. put yourself in the shoes of ppl that dont read or see this stuff before it happens... must have been amazing to hear that glass break and seeing the rattlesnake walk down the ramp.!!!!... think about it!

i personnally am now addicted to spoilers.. evan tho i tell myself. BeCooL.. Dont read the damn thing...my mind geos... " Have to click spoiler link" LOL... to hard to resist.

 

[immoralminority]

i rememver when i didn't have the internet, and i used to read these headlines on TeleText which would give you a small detail and then ask you to ring up a phone number and pay.

but i never paid i just read the headlines and tried to peice it all together.

i dont read spoilers for the shows i watch, i read the others to see if there is anything worth tuning in for.

in my opinion smart marks only ruin wrestling if they choose to be constant cynics, Wrestling is hinged on the suspention of disbeleif so i choose to watch things (that some may say are completely unlikley) in a mindset that this is what has actually happened (in the same way i'll read a book). it's only when the wrestling itself is unbelieveable (in terms of wrestling) or the gimmicks and storys
are TOO far fetched that i'll moan.

i find that sometimes going back and watching shows you loved as a kid with a marks eye can make you realise that to enjoy wrestling sometimes you have to let things go.

ahh its 7:39am i havent had any sleep and the rose tinted specs are glued to my head.