July 9, 2024 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, oftentimes when the topic of professional wrestling (think Hulk Hogan) comes up, it’s almost guaranteed that someone will scoff and say that it’s “fake.” Here’s Riley Evans, sports writer and CEO of RealPodcasting.com, to tell the real story about professional wrestling.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:21):
And we continue with our American stories. Oftentimes, when the
topic of professional wrestling they called Hogan comes up, it's
almost guaranteed that someone will scoff that it's just well
all fake. Yet those who enjoy watching professional wrestling won't disagree.
What they will say, or likely say, is that they
(00:41):
enjoy the characters, the athleticism, and the stagecraft. They know
it's scripted, and they love the storylines the same way
we all enjoy watching any scripted story on TV or
in the movies. Here's Riley Evans to tell the real
story about professional wrestling. He's titled pro Wrestlers Deserve to
(01:03):
be called athlete.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Over two hundred days a year, no off season, just running, jumping, bumping,
and crashing into concrete, steel, and wooden rings with only
the thinnest layer of padding. Bones break, ligament snap, and
even the absence of serious injury leaves the constant ache
(01:25):
of smaller ones. Short of something debilitating, there's no time
off to recover because if you stop, there's always somebody
waiting to take your place. Whether it's a high school
gymnasium or one hundred thousand seed stadium, the show must
go on for the entertainment of some of the world's
most rabbit fans. It's ironic that pro wrestling, the most
(01:47):
grueling athletic endeavor on earth, is laughed at by most
sports fans. Fans and most traditional sports often balk at
professional wrestling being mentioned in the same breath as their favorites.
Read the comment section on any Fox Sports article on
the WWE, you'll see the word fake so many times
that after the fiftieth comment, you'll start mixing it up
(02:08):
with the word them. What these trolling keyboard warriors are missing, however,
is that even if pro wrestling isn't quite your taste,
it contains much of what we love about legitimate sports.
Let's get one thing straight from the outset. Pro wrestling
matches are not competitions. The results are predetermined. Furthermore, various
(02:31):
major elements of each match are also determined ahead of time,
the exact amount of which depends on the wrestler's in question.
This has been the case since the start of the
twentieth century, when traveling carnival performers made the transition from
shoot aka legitimate competition wrestling to a more entertaining style
of athletics that necessitated the fixing of matches. Modern wrestling
(02:54):
is not fixed. It is not rigged, dishonest, or fake.
It is exactly what Vince Man hereby referred to as
Vince from Now until the End of Time told the
New Jersey State Athletic Commission in nineteen eighty nine, an
activity in which participants struggle a hand to hand, primarily
for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators rather than
(03:15):
conducting a bonifide athletic contest. Vince coined the term sports
entertainment to differentiate his product, known then as the WWF,
from other pro wrestling organizations at the time, but the
term actually provides the perfect description for the industry as
a whole. The problem is that so much time has
(03:36):
elapsed between pro wrestling's divergence from shoot wrestling and the
current era that people can't see the forest through the trees.
They no longer see the sport that provides the foundation
for the entertainment. Despite the fact that pro wrestling is
the most athletic that it's ever been, the top pro
wrestlers in the world must possess a rare and diverse
skill set. This is especially true for WWCU stars, as
(04:00):
the WWE product is heavier on the entertainment side of
the spectrum than anybody else. Wrestlers must be competent to
great public speakers. They must have a keen understanding of
storytelling to build compelling matches and programs. They also have
to be skilled actors, both in their ring and in
their promos. Professional wrestlers are great performers, but today, more
(04:22):
than ever, they are called to be better athletes because
it always comes back to what they can do in
the ring. Pro wrestling is an exercise of pageantry and spectacle.
It's a muscled up soap opera where larger than life
personalities collide for the entertainment of paying fans. The fact remains, however,
that all the promos and storylines in the world fade
(04:44):
into oblivion if those collisions, those in ring encounters between
athletes don't live up to the expectations created by the entertainers.
What would have happened if Hogan couldn't slam Andre at
WrestleMania three, if Brett Hardenshawn Michaels couldn't wrestle for an
hour straight? Conversely, will we remember the Festival of Friendship
(05:07):
in ten years after Owens and Jericho underwhelmed to wrestle
Mania thirty three. I might be reaching on that one.
The point is that the entire purpose behind the showmanship
and the storylines is to sell the in ring product.
We care more about the matches if we care about
the people in them. But as fans, we still demand
(05:28):
high quality wrestling to make the stories feel worthwhile, and
the bar for what constitutes high quality is higher than ever.
While the Attitude era pushed the envelope with edgy storylines
and violence, today's talent pushes the envelope with acrobatics. In
the squared circle, it takes the red arrow today to
get the reaction that a moon salt got over twenty
(05:51):
years ago. I think it speaks volumes that while many
pro wrestlers are feeled, football players recruited for their size
and physiques are routinely outpaced by the likes of Kenny Omega,
aj styles, seth rawlins, or Sasha Bangs, Smaller performers with
the balance and body control of elite gymnasts. Fans are
(06:13):
demanding bigger moves, more action, and a higher degree of
difficulty than we've ever seen. With more complex moves comes
a greater need for the utmost precision, because your opponent's
life and livelihood is literally in your hands at every moment.
The outcomes may be scripted, but the impact of bodies
on canvas, steel, and concrete are very real. One air
(06:36):
at knee is a broken nose. One bad pile driver
is a broken neck. Speaking of injury, let's talk about
playing through pain. Because pro wrestlers have the market cornered
on toughing it out, we praise athletes for playing through injury,
especially around playoff time. Imagine that, but every day is
(06:56):
playoff time and there's no off season for surgery. You
just keep going until you literally can't bear the pain anymore.
And if you're not already a star, your spot might
not be there when you come back. By the way,
if you're a WWE superstar pre pandemic, you were working
around two hundred and fifty shows a year all over
(07:17):
the world. One of those superstars is a guy named
Mark Callaway, who some of you might know better as
the Undertaker. For my money, he's one of the two
or three greatest professional wrestlers to ever breathe oxygen. For
anyone's money, he's one of the most respective performers in
the history of the industry, not only for his talent,
(07:38):
but for his toughness. He famously wrestled for months with
broken ribs by putting on a flack jacket and having
medical staff duct tape it around his torso. The undertaker
is six foot eight and probably weighed around three hundred
and twenty pounds at a time. Do you think taking
a three hundred pound bump with broken ribs was fun?
(08:01):
By the way, he's kind of needed a hip replacement
since nineteen ninety eight. He retired in two thousand and twenty.
Is he tough enough to be an athlete? Part of
the reason that people like take Er do ridiculous things
with flack jackets is because they're competitors. They want to
go out there every night and compete. Now, I can
(08:21):
already hear a bunch of yelling at your mobile devices.
They're not competing. The matches are fixed. You even said that.
I said, the results of the matches are predetermined, and
they are. Nobody said that there's no competition. Every night,
these performers go out and do what all other truly
great athletes do. They compete to be the absolute best
(08:46):
at what they do better than anyone else. Every wrestler
who still loves what they do wants to steal the
show and have the best match every night. They compete
for the adelation of fans. Many of them probably compete
with the hopes of being recognized for what they are,
high performance athletes, sacrificing their bodies every night that they
(09:08):
walk down that aisle. Professional wrestling doesn't have to be
your thing, and that's fine because we're not talking about
the product. We're talking about the players, the ones that
spend all the hours in the gym, make all the
sacrifices and get none of the respect from so many people.
I was incredibly proud to bring a taste of pro
(09:30):
wrestling to Grandstance Central as well as to the listeners
of our American Stories. I look forward to engaging with
people who give wrestlers the credit that they deserve.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And great job on the piece by Greg Hangler and
a special thanks to Riley Evans for telling the story,
the real story about professional wrestling here on our American
Story
And we continue with our American stories. Oftentimes, when the
topic of professional wrestling they called Hogan comes up, it's
almost guaranteed that someone will scoff that it's just well
all fake. Yet those who enjoy watching professional wrestling won't disagree.
What they will say, or likely say, is that they
(00:41):
enjoy the characters, the athleticism, and the stagecraft. They know
it's scripted, and they love the storylines the same way
we all enjoy watching any scripted story on TV or
in the movies. Here's Riley Evans to tell the real
story about professional wrestling. He's titled pro Wrestlers Deserve to
(01:03):
be called athlete.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Over two hundred days a year, no off season, just running, jumping, bumping,
and crashing into concrete, steel, and wooden rings with only
the thinnest layer of padding. Bones break, ligament snap, and
even the absence of serious injury leaves the constant ache
(01:25):
of smaller ones. Short of something debilitating, there's no time
off to recover because if you stop, there's always somebody
waiting to take your place. Whether it's a high school
gymnasium or one hundred thousand seed stadium, the show must
go on for the entertainment of some of the world's
most rabbit fans. It's ironic that pro wrestling, the most
(01:47):
grueling athletic endeavor on earth, is laughed at by most
sports fans. Fans and most traditional sports often balk at
professional wrestling being mentioned in the same breath as their favorites.
Read the comment section on any Fox Sports article on
the WWE, you'll see the word fake so many times
that after the fiftieth comment, you'll start mixing it up
(02:08):
with the word them. What these trolling keyboard warriors are missing, however,
is that even if pro wrestling isn't quite your taste,
it contains much of what we love about legitimate sports.
Let's get one thing straight from the outset. Pro wrestling
matches are not competitions. The results are predetermined. Furthermore, various
(02:31):
major elements of each match are also determined ahead of time,
the exact amount of which depends on the wrestler's in question.
This has been the case since the start of the
twentieth century, when traveling carnival performers made the transition from
shoot aka legitimate competition wrestling to a more entertaining style
of athletics that necessitated the fixing of matches. Modern wrestling
(02:54):
is not fixed. It is not rigged, dishonest, or fake.
It is exactly what Vince Man hereby referred to as
Vince from Now until the End of Time told the
New Jersey State Athletic Commission in nineteen eighty nine, an
activity in which participants struggle a hand to hand, primarily
for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators rather than
(03:15):
conducting a bonifide athletic contest. Vince coined the term sports
entertainment to differentiate his product, known then as the WWF,
from other pro wrestling organizations at the time, but the
term actually provides the perfect description for the industry as
a whole. The problem is that so much time has
(03:36):
elapsed between pro wrestling's divergence from shoot wrestling and the
current era that people can't see the forest through the trees.
They no longer see the sport that provides the foundation
for the entertainment. Despite the fact that pro wrestling is
the most athletic that it's ever been, the top pro
wrestlers in the world must possess a rare and diverse
skill set. This is especially true for WWCU stars, as
(04:00):
the WWE product is heavier on the entertainment side of
the spectrum than anybody else. Wrestlers must be competent to
great public speakers. They must have a keen understanding of
storytelling to build compelling matches and programs. They also have
to be skilled actors, both in their ring and in
their promos. Professional wrestlers are great performers, but today, more
(04:22):
than ever, they are called to be better athletes because
it always comes back to what they can do in
the ring. Pro wrestling is an exercise of pageantry and spectacle.
It's a muscled up soap opera where larger than life
personalities collide for the entertainment of paying fans. The fact remains, however,
that all the promos and storylines in the world fade
(04:44):
into oblivion if those collisions, those in ring encounters between
athletes don't live up to the expectations created by the entertainers.
What would have happened if Hogan couldn't slam Andre at
WrestleMania three, if Brett Hardenshawn Michaels couldn't wrestle for an
hour straight? Conversely, will we remember the Festival of Friendship
(05:07):
in ten years after Owens and Jericho underwhelmed to wrestle
Mania thirty three. I might be reaching on that one.
The point is that the entire purpose behind the showmanship
and the storylines is to sell the in ring product.
We care more about the matches if we care about
the people in them. But as fans, we still demand
(05:28):
high quality wrestling to make the stories feel worthwhile, and
the bar for what constitutes high quality is higher than ever.
While the Attitude era pushed the envelope with edgy storylines
and violence, today's talent pushes the envelope with acrobatics. In
the squared circle, it takes the red arrow today to
get the reaction that a moon salt got over twenty
(05:51):
years ago. I think it speaks volumes that while many
pro wrestlers are feeled, football players recruited for their size
and physiques are routinely outpaced by the likes of Kenny Omega,
aj styles, seth rawlins, or Sasha Bangs, Smaller performers with
the balance and body control of elite gymnasts. Fans are
(06:13):
demanding bigger moves, more action, and a higher degree of
difficulty than we've ever seen. With more complex moves comes
a greater need for the utmost precision, because your opponent's
life and livelihood is literally in your hands at every moment.
The outcomes may be scripted, but the impact of bodies
on canvas, steel, and concrete are very real. One air
(06:36):
at knee is a broken nose. One bad pile driver
is a broken neck. Speaking of injury, let's talk about
playing through pain. Because pro wrestlers have the market cornered
on toughing it out, we praise athletes for playing through injury,
especially around playoff time. Imagine that, but every day is
(06:56):
playoff time and there's no off season for surgery. You
just keep going until you literally can't bear the pain anymore.
And if you're not already a star, your spot might
not be there when you come back. By the way,
if you're a WWE superstar pre pandemic, you were working
around two hundred and fifty shows a year all over
(07:17):
the world. One of those superstars is a guy named
Mark Callaway, who some of you might know better as
the Undertaker. For my money, he's one of the two
or three greatest professional wrestlers to ever breathe oxygen. For
anyone's money, he's one of the most respective performers in
the history of the industry, not only for his talent,
(07:38):
but for his toughness. He famously wrestled for months with
broken ribs by putting on a flack jacket and having
medical staff duct tape it around his torso. The undertaker
is six foot eight and probably weighed around three hundred
and twenty pounds at a time. Do you think taking
a three hundred pound bump with broken ribs was fun?
(08:01):
By the way, he's kind of needed a hip replacement
since nineteen ninety eight. He retired in two thousand and twenty.
Is he tough enough to be an athlete? Part of
the reason that people like take Er do ridiculous things
with flack jackets is because they're competitors. They want to
go out there every night and compete. Now, I can
(08:21):
already hear a bunch of yelling at your mobile devices.
They're not competing. The matches are fixed. You even said that.
I said, the results of the matches are predetermined, and
they are. Nobody said that there's no competition. Every night,
these performers go out and do what all other truly
great athletes do. They compete to be the absolute best
(08:46):
at what they do better than anyone else. Every wrestler
who still loves what they do wants to steal the
show and have the best match every night. They compete
for the adelation of fans. Many of them probably compete
with the hopes of being recognized for what they are,
high performance athletes, sacrificing their bodies every night that they
(09:08):
walk down that aisle. Professional wrestling doesn't have to be
your thing, and that's fine because we're not talking about
the product. We're talking about the players, the ones that
spend all the hours in the gym, make all the
sacrifices and get none of the respect from so many people.
I was incredibly proud to bring a taste of pro
(09:30):
wrestling to Grandstance Central as well as to the listeners
of our American Stories. I look forward to engaging with
people who give wrestlers the credit that they deserve.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And great job on the piece by Greg Hangler and
a special thanks to Riley Evans for telling the story,
the real story about professional wrestling here on our American
Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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