This is a bit of a break from my usual AEW writing. Every time the weather whips from warm to cold I tend to get seasonal affective disorder and it essentially makes my ADHD medication not work the way it should and breaks me a little bit and it becomes very hard for me to get much done. So whatever writing I can get out during this time is a miracle essentially. And this is a topic I’ve wanted to jump on for a while so why not?
Pro wrestling.
What is pro wrestling?
No no don’t click off. I swear this won’t be 10,000 words. I’m going to try to keep this as tight as possible. Bargain me for 2,000 words.
Pro wrestling is a performance art that resembles a sport and works as live entertainment but plays with your expectations of reality and dramatic theatre to construct plays in the form of matches and storytelling to engage you.
It isn’t sport, but it resembles sport enough to get you into it like a sport. Performers can call on the fly or plot their decisions. A booker can script plot and result but it still is up to the performer’s to execute the ideas the booker wants. Unlike a scripted TV series or most theatrical performances, the audience can merely react to what they see. TV shows need another season to make changes. In pro wrestling? Everything is far more breathing and alive. Snap decisions can be made in the moment.
Yeah yeah what are you getting at?
Okay. I think we’ve reached a point in discussing pro wrestling where people have set viewpoints on what is and isn’t PRO WRESTLING when it comes to their own knowledge of the narrative.
This viewpoint is sometimes taste and sometimes knowledge of pro wrestling history but it is absolutely the way they approach everything they see. When something breaks that viewpoint, regardless of how it is reacted to? It is bad to them.
Ludonarrative Dissonance
Back in 2007, Clint Hocking referred to the conflict between a videogame narrative told through gameplay and videogame narrative told through cut scenes and pre designed story “ludonarrative dissonance” when they don’t align. Essentially, it’s when the videogame tells you in cut scenes that everybody loves a guy and he’s cool and he saves everyone but when you play it you’re a mass murderer who also steals everything they see. That’s a ludonarrative dissonance. What you do in the game doesn’t match what people say you’re doing in the game.
Let me introduce luchanarrative dissonance. I am defining this as the conflict between the reality of the sport in pro wrestling and the reality pro wrestling has created for itself as an art.
At the heart of this dissonance is the question of the importance of something feeling real and the difference of “real to wrestling” and “real to sport“
What’s wrestling as a sport? Well wrestling is a sport. It’s an actual athletic competition. Pro wrestling is sort of a twisted machination of that athletic competition. Pro wrestling involves pro wrestling in terms of pins and suplexes but it also combines other forms of martial arts. It also just involves straight up fighting, punching and kicking.
Real to sport is about the things being done in the ring looking like they actually hurt. Looking like they would in an actual street fight, or an MMA match, or in a collegiate wrestling match.
What is wrestling as an art, or real to wrestling? That’s about the things you do being more about telling a story than it is about looking real. From no selling to desperation kick outs to even just ignoring the pain of a submission move that’s supposed to be a 200lb man putting their body pressure on breaking a bone in your body so you can reverse it or get the ropes? That’s all the art.
“real to wrestling” is about all of the things we absolutely accept in wrestling that are not acceptable in reality. From an Irish Whip to a punch never hurting your own knuckles even after you throw 50 of them every night to how when you do a dropkick it hurts your opponent but if you miss the dropkick it hurts you even though there’s no transfer of impact from the fall? This is the reality of wrestling.
What is real?
These elements are constantly in conflict with each other when we discuss wrestling today, and they are constantly in conflict with what people want to see in their pro wrestling.
The origins of me discussing this was actually back in 2016 and my issue was with Zack Sabre Jr. At the time ZSJ was pretty skinny and a lot of his submissions just didn’t look believable to me. I didn’t buy into the “real to sport” that ZSJ could beat anyone 30lbs heavier than him and that his submissions were effective. This is even as I’m a Day One UFC watcher who saw Royce Gracie tap out many guys who were much smaller than him. Zack just didn’t seem real in my reality.
Today I absolutely love Zack Sabre Jr. He’s one of my favourite pro wrestlers. He’s also put on some weight and that was enough for me to now buy into what he does. I can believe him tapping out someone bigger than him because he no longer looks like the bassist of an emopop band. He looks like a competitor.
But for a lot of other people they didn’t care about that because the stories Zack told and his attitude in matches is what sold them on his ability. One thing Zack has always done is show he has a wealth of knowledge in wrestling holds but not all of them are killers. It usually takes the duration of the match in doing these various holds and making his opponent break them that gets him to victory. That’s the story. You figure that story out by watching ZSJ, but if you’re immediately out of the story based on his physical appearance? You never learn that. You never understand he’s real to wrestling.
Real to Sport Arguments Actually Real to Wrestling
This is often the problem with people who complain about the leg slapping and the “gymnastics” in today’s pro wrestling. It’s the visual that is breaking them. They will talk about how back in the day things were better but that visual wasn’t more realistic. It was simply more appealing to them. The 1970s and 1980s having paunchy balding hairy men who don’t look athletic (despite having great cardio to work long matches) replacing the leg slap for the foot stomp in their moves and throwing punches no different to wrestlers today with kicks, and instead of athletic displays with reversals leading to a big move it’s a slow build to a shift in momentum? It’s a stylistic difference.
The problem is that the people who prefer the old school 80s wrestling are making the argument they are appealing to real to sportwhen they are appealing to real to wrestling. And they conflate the two all the time and it’s frustrating. Because they can’t get their own argument together. Foot stomping, 50 punches, slow selling and five impact moves isn’t real. Nothing you’re watching resembles a street fight. There’s no sense of adrenaline like a hockey fight. There’s no sense that these are the best athletes in the world in a wrestling competition. But it’s real to the world of wrestling we had created up to that point. At the time it was peak professional wrestling, and still resonates with them today.
Today we have what’s essentially no different to superhero movies. Two people having vast experience in multiple martial art styles striking each other with blocks and counters and no sells all building and building up to make you wonder, “What could possibly stop one of these titans?” before finally someone goes down to a big move. There is a desensitization of the classic wrestling holds which means you have to always raise the stakes. More moves on the apron (the hardest part of the ring!) and more risks. Nothing about this in any way less real than the fake matches of the 70s and 80s. It’s just telling the same stories differently. It’s still all aligned in the real to wrestling.
What’s the point? Immersion
I believe a lot of our debates would be easier to understand if we could get over our luchanarrative dissonance. If we could properly express what’s real to us and express what part of real to wrestling resonates best with us.
Size advantages, skill advantages, believability? These are issues about being real to sport.
Selling, psychology, execution, pacing? These are issues about being real to wrestling.
Identifying both of these and identifying them in arguments can lead to better discussion. It leads people to better explain their immersion.
Immersion is all about how engaged you are into something. And when you have something fake like pro wrestling? You need to be immersed to get it.
To truly love pro wrestling you have to accept the world being given to you and the stories it is trying to tell. The moment you don’t believe it? That’s when your immersion breaks. And understanding the dissonance between “sport reality” and “wrestling reality” is a large part of that immersion.
This is why some people accept a comedy act and others do not. This is why some accept high level athleticism and others think it’s a waste of motion. This is why some accept a punch heavy Memphis brawl and others think it just looks like bad TV show fighting.
This is why people complain about rankings and number one contenders and if a smaller wrestler can compete in a heavyweight dominated division. If you believe in the stories being told? You don’t ask. If you don’t believe it? These things suddenly matter.
The better people are at understanding what their interpretation of real to wrestling and real to sport is, the better they can understand their own luchanarrative dissonance in between the two. And understanding that allows them to better explain their immersion in some matches and not in others.
Is there a right or wrong? I really don’t care about right or wrong in this. I only care about how I feel. What immerses me. What I can accept and what I cannot. You have to come to your own conclusion on what is right and wrong for you in pro wrestling.
Before you can properly rate matches for others (which I still plan to do on GrapPro) and before you can properly discuss why programs work or don’t for you? You have to be able to explain what immerses you into the reality of wrestling and what breaks that immersion due to the reality of sport.
Conclusion
Some people might read this and roll their eyes. I get it. It’s just pro wrestling. Who cares. I got likes and dislikes and sometimes they don’t make sense. But some of us like to discuss wrestling as more than just lowbrow entertainment, just like Clint Hocking wanted to discuss videogames as more than just a toy.
If you want to do that? You have to incorporate a better understanding in what you are trying to argue for what you are arguing against. You have to understand why real to sport can break your immersion, why real to wrestling doesn’t break someone else, and how the things you’ve loved most in pro wrestling are not about being real to sport as much as they could, but actually how they elevated the real to wrestling to the point where your brain accepted it as sport.
What is pro wrestling?
That’s for you to figure out.
Photo of Gisele Shaw and Athena from Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling 10/20/2024
