"Don't ruin it for everyone else by deliberately trying to break the fourth wall…But maybe that's just me."
No, it's not just you…it's ridiculous…would it be "cool" if during a Tom Cruise movie, a small but vocal part of the theater chanted "Maverick" constantly?
With only one real wrestling company and no territories, there will be even more re-packaging…get used to it or move on.
As a related aside, I record and watch RAW with my kids, ages 10 and 7…I record it so I can FF anything I deem inappropriate…my 7 year old – of course – loves John Cena…he's very concerned about Cena's match with Mark Henry…in noticing the prominent "what?" chants, he asked me about it…once I explained that it was a catchphrase from a wrestler who hadn't wrestled for 10 years, he said "that's really stupid, Dad"…from the mouths of babes.
I also hate the "What" chant a lot.
Plus yeah, we all know Kane used to be an evil dentist and fake Diesel, but we save that sort of mean-spirited mocking and derision for where it belongs: The internet!
inappropriate? poor kids. i grew up watching the attitude era full shows and getting the occasional RAW magazine.
ReplyDeleteI too hate the "what?" chants.
ReplyDeleteThe movie theater analogy is maybe the dumbest ever.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this will be like DB's 18 second WrestleMania loss? I haven't seen the Smarks so pumped up about something since then.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm in the camp who really believes that the 18 second loss is the absolute best thing that could have happened to DB. (I'm absolutely not giving credit to WWE for that. There's no way they could have pulled that off on purpose but still. It worked out pretty well for the Dragon.)
I will never understand the mind of someone who thinks that chanting "what?" is funny, clever, amusing, etc.
ReplyDeleteNot to sound like one of those guys....but with a crowd that knows how to use it, I still love the WHAT? chant.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the wrestlers who continue to speak in a cadence that allows the "WHAT?" chants to continue.
ReplyDeleteThis has been said time and time again. People spend their hard-earned money to watch a live show. Nobody is throwing crap at the ring, like the WCW fans used to do. Nobody is breaking the law. What people are doing is expressing their feelings for what is going on in the ring, the only and best way they can. Vocally. Whatever some people may feel about WWE's use of Windham Rotunda, there are a LOT of people who believe WWE f****d it up. In EPIC FAIL fashion. And the Kane analogy doesn't work. In order to get Glen Jacobs over after a disastrous gimmick they had him wear a mask and not speak(or use a modulated voice on the rare occasions when he did). With Windham Rotunda, they stick the guy out there as Husky Harris for the better part of THREE YEARS. Then one day he's magically "Bray Wyatt", and people re suddenly supposed to take him seriously, and wipe their memories like something out of Orwell?
ReplyDeleteThe people who chanted "Husky Harris" at this travesty have nothing but admiration from me. And if you don't like it, nobody is forcing YOU to join in the chants. T
Agreed. People pay for their tickets, they should be allowed to have fun and cheer what they want as long as it is not hateful or explicit. The people who were offended by the Baltimore crowd chanting are not entitled to tell people how to act. That is equally wrong as well.
ReplyDeleteThree other things: 1) That people have been complaining about how fans "broke the fourth wall". WTF? Does WWE even have a fourth wall? It's in front of a live crowd who are constantly referenced on every f***ing show, and even have their own WWE-approved name, "The WWE Universe". And aren't these "fourth wall" people the exact same folks who complain when WWE promote themselves as "Entertainment" rather than "Pro Wrestling"? Maybe if WWE acknowledged their "Universe" more often, this sort of mess wouldn't happen. 2) It's not a piano recital, it's wrestling. The fans are SUPPOSED to get loud and rowdy, as long as they keep it clean and don't engage in hate speech. 3) I seem to recall someone blaming WWE's ineptitude for how they screwed up Terry Taylor's career with a bad gimmick. So bad that fans chanted "Rooster!" at him for years afterwards. And it was all WWE's fault, not the fans.
ReplyDeleteI hope you remember that the next time someone is texting during a movie.
ReplyDeleteNever cared about it, honestly. Unless it's a particular rule the theatre has and wants to enforce (i.e. "text and you'll be kicked out", which they don't), it doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteI think overall this is a pretty weak analogy. There are obviously different expectations in a cinema and to a public "sporting" event.
This comment is maybe the dumbest ever.
ReplyDelete"he asked me about it…once I explained that it was a catchphrase from a wrestler who hadn't wrestled for 10 years, he said "that's really stupid, Dad"…from the mouths of babes."
ReplyDeleteIt's not like wrestling caters to - on average - the sharpest knives in the drawer. Might be good to explain to your kid that a mass of stupid people gathered into one area are going to do stupid things. =)
Yeah, your comment was pretty dumb.
ReplyDeleteWHAT?
ReplyDeleteWow...sharp.
ReplyDeletewhat crowd knows how to use it?
ReplyDeleteTHose are the crowds that can do it in sync, at the proper spots in promos, and with what angles or characters to use it against (like R-Truth or Miz).
ReplyDeleteBecause that's all they know from watching, learning, or being part of the product of the last decade.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started watching Breaking Bad, I used to think "Haha, it sure is funny seeing Malcolm's Dad in these situations!"
ReplyDeleteI sure as hell don't think that way anymore.
I would doubt that even one in ten people chanting "What?" could even tell you how it originated.
ReplyDeleteFrom Christian's phone?
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, the Rooster- I used a similar point with the stupidity of the Husky Harris name being why it's still chanted. I stand by that- it's as much the WWE's fault for giving someone a stupid name and then just expecting everyone to not notice.
ReplyDeleteIt's still douchey and smarky for the fans to chant it, though.
For the better part of 3 years?
ReplyDeleteHe debuted on NXT in May 2010.
He was punted back to FCW in January 2011.
He's been Bray Wyatt on the new developmental NXT show ever since it started last June.
Your estimation of the timeframe that Husky Harris existed is vastly overstated.
I mean besides us old-timers.
ReplyDeleteHell, the Wyatts could turn the "Husky Harris" chants into a gimmick: they could come out and say "We heard you chanting for Husky Harris, so we gotta teach him a lesson." And then point to, say, Zack Ryder, and go "Is that Husky Harris?" and they kick his ass, and then say. "Guess not. We'll keep looking."
ReplyDeleteI was more making reference to the stupidity of the "What" chants origin.
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of any other inside joke that's been as significant on wrestling.
Absolutely! In fact when going back to watching Malcolm In The Middle repeats I find it strange that I'm watching Walter White in a comedy.
ReplyDeleteI hate the "What?!" chants at indy shows. I've seen several different promotions in Melbourne where the same people do it to every promo on the card.
ReplyDeleteIt's just plain lazy.
One of the ROH TV shows I reviewed had some fucking wanker trying to do the "What?" chant, and everyone else in the crowd totally no-sold it. C'mon now, it's 2013, for fuck's sake.
ReplyDeleteIronically, I was rewatching the InVasion and I've gotten to the time period where Austin starts the "what?" It's basically around Summerslam 2001.
ReplyDeleteIt's even more jarring seeing him on Seinfeld and How I Met Your Mother.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
ReplyDeleteYou're supposed to quiet and watch the movie when in a theater (occasionally people cheer when something awesome happens, and laugh when something funny happens). An arena is a completely different beast altogether.
Or they could go on a quest to find Stan Hansen.
ReplyDelete"What?" was fun in 2002, when Booker T tried and failed to capture the zeitgeist with "Who?"
ReplyDeleteThat was 11 years ago. It's gone now. Time to move on.
Yeah, and even at different sporting events. You know that you would behave differently at a tennis match than how you would behave at a football match. And you'd behave differently at a pro wrestling(or sportz entertainment) event than you would anywhere else.I can remember doing some crappy drama class at school where the guy actually used the examples of tennis crowds, football crowds and pro wrestling crowds to illustrate how different environments have different etiquettes and expectations. Which is all a long way of saying that pro wrestling crowds are SUPPOSED to be loud and boisterous.And you can't really compare that to live crowds anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteHoly cow, did I just see Dougie and Mar Solo agree on something?!!? Need to take a screenshot...
ReplyDeleteAh, Desperadoes references. Crabs fans all over the country will think "Who the fuck is Black Bart?"
ReplyDelete