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On topic:
Some of it has less to do with suddenly being awakened to being "smarkish" as opposed to the evolution of how we may have grown and thought about things. I remember legit hating Piper. I couldn't fucking stand the guy. This is now a testament to how good a heel he truly was. I remember bickering with my dad over the "wrestling's fake" thing (which, aside from the whole "protect kayfabe" p.o.v., I don't see why this is such a rage worthy statement: what is usually meant by "fake" is "scripted, pre-planed, and done in a way to minimize injury", as opposed to something like boxing, where the whole point is to try to kill the other guy, unless you actually do.) I remember ripping plastic bag "tank tops" to be like Hogan. Yes, wrestling was simple and fun then. This was before the Sgt. Slaughter match(es) that started me down the slow road to knowing more than I should. This was before things like RAW is OWEN.
I was a bit of a "smark" before logging on, but logging on helped me become a "better smark", if there is such a thing.
For example, if I watched a match between "All-American Faceman" who has "the look" but a huge problem with blowing spots, and "The Masked Heel" who is one of the best technical wrestlers in the world, the mentality would have been similar to the following.
as a kid: Yay! Go Face. Boo, Heel! Wow, that powerslam looked like it hurt!!
pre-log on "smark": God, the Face sucks. He fucked up that powerslam. This is stupid.
after internets: You know, the Heel carried that sloppy jackass the whole time. He even took a botched powerslam and still made him look like less of a fuck up. Face needs to wrestle more guys like this to stay over!
Only partially topical:
Funny how we were "smarter" than we realized when we were little. I was one of many impressionable youth who did, in fact, try this at home. I remember on several occaions going to a local rec center which had a tae kwan do classroom upstars and having "matches" on the mat. We had to pretend there were ropes, of course but I distinictly remember calling spots so the other kid knew what was coming as not to get hurt (though, we did it as we were our own play-by-play man), kayfabing heel and face roles (usually, we just said we were "x" wrestler, or made up a name, but it was obvious who it was taken off of), and somewhat deciding beforehand the finish (again, as not to get hurt- plus, it eliminated the whole "no, I wanna win" thing that started legit fights). I would learn years and years later I a)was usually a jobber, and b) I had a gimmick that carried over IRL. Any "match" I lost, I refused to do so by taping out, no matter how much I actually got stretched. They would get tired of asking if I gave up and either reverse it themselves or break the hold. I got a rep among my friends for being a badass pain sponge, and rarely ever got fucked with because of it (though, I think if they actually tested that rep, I likely would have gotten stomped on a regular basis... wasn't that good of a fighter).
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