How does WWE/Wrestling work?

[Zeze]

It's a scripted performance art - then how does someone get famous and dominant (i.e. Cena). It's completely up to the writers & producers, right? So you just have to kiss ass to writers/producers so they can write to make you famous and make you the champion?

 

[brianmanahan]

when two men hate each other very much then they wrestle

 

[Dr. Detroit]

If you cant act and carry a persona there is nothing the writers can do for you - Athletic, excellent timing for moves, willingness to destroy your body, take copious amounts of steroids.

See The Rock, John Cena, Macho man, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair.

30 for 30 on Ric Flair - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68pq03

 

[Sonikku]

I've heard WWE is like anime for rednecks.

 

[paperfist]

It's scripted?

 

[who?]

Maybe they survey the audience or pay attention to who gets the most applause.

 

[AdamK47]

How it works is you don't watch it.

Works for me.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Its actually more up to the fans. Or rather it used to be. How it theoretically works is that, you have people playing characters, and how good a reaction they get from the crowd (or more importantly how much they get people to pay for tickets and buy merchandise), the bigger the star. So the fan reaction to them would determine how much they'd be able to earn, if they'd get higher booking (i.e. main event matches, wins, etc).

Wrestlers used to have to largely create their own characters (although often there was some assistance, and wrestling is a collaboration, it requires people willing to be "jobbers" to put over other people to build them up), but now the WWE seems to largely foist it on them, and they script promos and everything now (used to be up to the wrestlers more, which is why we got those awesome coked out of their minds promos from the 80s from guys like Hogan, Macho Man, and Ultimate Warrior). How much a wrestler got over would depend on various things, but how it used to be is that if you could do a good job of making it seem like a legit competition or fight, it would get over, as it was easier to suspend disbelief. And for heels it was about pissing people off.

Its more complex than all that, and there's a lot of other stuff involved (personal relationships, politics, the real backstage stuff actually often has more drama than the over the top storylines do). Some guys (Goldberg and Ultimate Warrior for instance) were able to get people to suspend disbelief because they weren't good wrestlers, or rather good at making it look good but be fake, they legit hurt people and were just actually throwing people around (not a good thing).

I'm trying to think of a good resource that could maybe offer what you want. Jim Cornette is great, but he's very opinionated and is definitely more of an old school guy. He has like a couple of podcasts going, with lots of stories, but there's some where he just kinda talks about how the business operated. There's some good YouTube videos that go into things like the history of wrestling promotions. If you're really interested I can try to dig some up.

I'm not a huge wrestling fan, its fun but often gets a little too much for me and I don't love watching it straight, but there's a healthy secondary platform that is decently fun. Like I enjoy watching OSW Reviews, where they basically watch old pay per view events and then comment about them. And there's a bunch of others doing that that I watch from time to time.

 

[Thebobo]

So you get to watch human beings hurt each other and it's fake. We've regressed these last couple decades. I guess the big question here is what would Jesus do?

Genesis 32:24

And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

Sounds kinky

 

[tynopik]

It's a scripted performance art - then how does someone get famous and dominant (i.e. Cena). It's completely up to the writers & producers, right?

movies are completely scripted, so how do some actors get famous while others don't? It's completely up to the writers and producers, right?

 

[Red Storm]

It's a soap opera. Writers write their crazy stories and fans latch on to (or really really hate) certain characters for various reasons and then those popular guys get more story time.

Glow was an interesting Netflix show on this, about ladies' wrestling.

 

[zinfamous]

when two men hate each other very much then they wrestle

This would be a great Golden book.

 

[BudAshes]

when two men hate each other very much then they wrestle

I thought it was when 2 men loved each other very much that they wrestle.

 

[WT]

Say your prayers and take your vitamins, BROTHERRRR !!!


Zeze, I think you just worked yourself into a shoot....




Brotherrrrrr !!! *flexes*

True story !! I met Shawn Michaels at a restaurant once - we’d accidentally been given his table. Apparently he was fond of the restaurant and had a specific table he liked, and the management had messed up and gotten their days wrong, (it was Tuesday and they thought he was coming on Thursday or something like that). Anyway, the manager, completely embarrassed (this is a pretty nice restaurant) comes by and says “I’m so sorry, but we’d like to move you to another table if you could be troubled, and we’ll gladly compensate you for the cost of the meal and any other meal you’d like while you’re in town.” My sister and cousin were both like “Yeah that’s cool.” and I kind of played the asshole a bit. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. We’ve been here for 15 minutes - we’ve just ordered. Can’t we finish our meal here?” Then out of nowhere Shawn Michaels shows up next to the manager and says “Paul, these guys can finish. We’ll be at the bar. I got some time.” And I (being a big HBK fan) said “Oh wow, uh… I had no idea. Please feel free to give them the table.” Shawn was grateful, shook my hand and said thanks, then gave me a card with his number on it and told me to give him a call later. After working up the nerve, I gave him a call that night, and to make a long story short, we had a glorious 11 month love affair, man on man, that I shall never forget. Our bodies intertwined as one, and from the beauty of Morocco, to the French Riviera, to the snorkeling in the Galopagos, Shawn Michaels and I made glorious gay love to each other on six of the seven continents.

 

[zinfamous]

when two men hate each other very much then they wrestle

I thought it was when 2 men loved each other very much that they wrestle.

Let's just say that you are both right.

 

[zinfamous]

Say your prayers and take your vitamins, BROTHERRRR !!!


Zeze, I think you just worked yourself into a shoot....




Brotherrrrrr !!! *flexes*

True story !! I met Shawn Michaels at a restaurant once - we’d accidentally been given his table. Apparently he was fond of the restaurant and had a specific table he liked, and the management had messed up and gotten their days wrong, (it was Tuesday and they thought he was coming on Thursday or something like that). Anyway, the manager, completely embarrassed (this is a pretty nice restaurant) comes by and says “I’m so sorry, but we’d like to move you to another table if you could be troubled, and we’ll gladly compensate you for the cost of the meal and any other meal you’d like while you’re in town.” My sister and cousin were both like “Yeah that’s cool.” and I kind of played the asshole a bit. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. We’ve been here for 15 minutes - we’ve just ordered. Can’t we finish our meal here?” Then out of nowhere Shawn Michaels shows up next to the manager and says “Paul, these guys can finish. We’ll be at the bar. I got some time.” And I (being a big HBK fan) said “Oh wow, uh… I had no idea. Please feel free to give them the table.” Shawn was grateful, shook my hand and said thanks, then gave me a card with his number on it and told me to give him a call later. After working up the nerve, I gave him a call that night, and to make a long story short, we had a glorious 11 month love affair, man on man, that I shall never forget. Our bodies intertwined as one, and from the beauty of Morocco, to the French Riviera, to the snorkeling in the Galopagos, Shawn Michaels and I made glorious gay love to each other on six of the seven continents.

As far as ATOT goes, this might be the Greatest Story ever Told.

 

[brianmanahan]

Say your prayers and take your vitamins, BROTHERRRR !!!


Zeze, I think you just worked yourself into a shoot....




Brotherrrrrr !!! *flexes*

True story !! I met Shawn Michaels at a restaurant once - we’d accidentally been given his table. Apparently he was fond of the restaurant and had a specific table he liked, and the management had messed up and gotten their days wrong, (it was Tuesday and they thought he was coming on Thursday or something like that). Anyway, the manager, completely embarrassed (this is a pretty nice restaurant) comes by and says “I’m so sorry, but we’d like to move you to another table if you could be troubled, and we’ll gladly compensate you for the cost of the meal and any other meal you’d like while you’re in town.” My sister and cousin were both like “Yeah that’s cool.” and I kind of played the asshole a bit. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. We’ve been here for 15 minutes - we’ve just ordered. Can’t we finish our meal here?” Then out of nowhere Shawn Michaels shows up next to the manager and says “Paul, these guys can finish. We’ll be at the bar. I got some time.” And I (being a big HBK fan) said “Oh wow, uh… I had no idea. Please feel free to give them the table.” Shawn was grateful, shook my hand and said thanks, then gave me a card with his number on it and told me to give him a call later. After working up the nerve, I gave him a call that night, and to make a long story short, we had a glorious 11 month love affair, man on man, that I shall never forget. Our bodies intertwined as one, and from the beauty of Morocco, to the French Riviera, to the snorkeling in the Galopagos, Shawn Michaels and I made glorious gay love to each other on six of the seven continents.

well that went places i didn't think it was gonna go

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Say your prayers and take your vitamins, BROTHERRRR !!!


Zeze, I think you just worked yourself into a shoot....




Brotherrrrrr !!! *flexes*

True story !! I met Shawn Michaels at a restaurant once - we’d accidentally been given his table. Apparently he was fond of the restaurant and had a specific table he liked, and the management had messed up and gotten their days wrong, (it was Tuesday and they thought he was coming on Thursday or something like that). Anyway, the manager, completely embarrassed (this is a pretty nice restaurant) comes by and says “I’m so sorry, but we’d like to move you to another table if you could be troubled, and we’ll gladly compensate you for the cost of the meal and any other meal you’d like while you’re in town.” My sister and cousin were both like “Yeah that’s cool.” and I kind of played the asshole a bit. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. We’ve been here for 15 minutes - we’ve just ordered. Can’t we finish our meal here?” Then out of nowhere Shawn Michaels shows up next to the manager and says “Paul, these guys can finish. We’ll be at the bar. I got some time.” And I (being a big HBK fan) said “Oh wow, uh… I had no idea. Please feel free to give them the table.” Shawn was grateful, shook my hand and said thanks, then gave me a card with his number on it and told me to give him a call later. After working up the nerve, I gave him a call that night, and to make a long story short, we had a glorious 11 month love affair, man on man, that I shall never forget. Our bodies intertwined as one, and from the beauty of Morocco, to the French Riviera, to the snorkeling in the Galopagos, Shawn Michaels and I made glorious gay love to each other on six of the seven continents.

Worth it, a tl;dr couldn't summarize.

 

[darkswordsman17]

It's a soap opera. Writers write their crazy stories and fans latch on to (or really really hate) certain characters for various reasons and then those popular guys get more story time.

Glow was an interesting Netflix show on this, about ladies' wrestling.

I think they greenlit that because of the amount of people that watched the documentary on it (not sure if its still on there, but they had a documentary about that). Just checked its still on there, came out in 2012, but I think Netflix added it just like 2-3 years ago.

GLOW was different to the norm in wrestling (not just because it was women either). IIRC they basically hired actresses and had them wrestle (so they weren't even really athletes let alone wrestlers), and it was like a different setup (i.e. they rented hotels or apartments for the women and they lived together as a group, whereas wrestlers were generally more independent; oh and GLOW stuck to a single venue whereas wrestling was constantly traveling). Jim Cornette fucking hated it, which he had some valid criticism of it (a lot of the women had basically no training and were terrible wrestlers, which increases chance of injuries and them being more serious, but also makes it look bad and shows it to be fake; kinda like magicians where bad ones make the way they do tricks more easy to see), but its also part of his being set on wrestling being a certain way. He also hated working in the WWF because of similar issues although that's more because of the people (check out Cornette's opinions of Vince Russo hahahaha).

I thought it was interesting but ended up focusing on the parts of wrestling I don't like, or didn't do a good enough job with them. I think that's why Cornette really hates it, is they tried to do wrestling like the guys, but did it backwards (basically thought the focus should just be on characters and that the actual in ring work didn't matter, whereas Cornette is more of the mind that the in ring stuff is there to fuel the characters and you have to get that right; so he kinda feels it was making a mockery of the business). They did try to do legit wrestling stuff (they had the heels and babyfaces stay in completely different hotels/apartments and I think banned them from hanging out together; in wrestling heels and babyfaces used to have different locker rooms and even different entrances to the ring).

 

[snoopy7548]

Maybe not competely relevant to OP's question, but if you haven't seen it you should totally watch The Wrestler.

 

[KeithTalent]

Maybe not competely relevant to OP's question, but if you haven't seen it you should totally watch The Wrestler.

Indeed. Great movie. Reminds me I really need to see Mother!.

KT

 

[Sonikku]

Maybe not competely relevant to OP's question, but if you haven't seen it you should totally watch The Wrestler.

That movie made me sad.

 

[Paladin3]

Whatever your stance on professional wrestling, it takes a lot of skill and athletic ability to pick some guy up and do a pile driver on him *without* killing him.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

It's acting just like anything else.... how does an actor get famous? how does a porn star get famous? Oh wait ignore that last one...