Once the Balloon Is Popped It Is Impossible To Re-Inflate
#PWHS #Article #OnceTheBalloonIsPopped #ItsImpossibleToReInFlate
"Is that a rasslin' magazine?!!"
-Yes. And it's pronounced "wrestling".-
"Don chew know iz all fake?"
-The matches are fixed,
the falls and the blood are real.-
"Jeez! Just how dumb are you?!!"
-Yes. And it's pronounced "wrestling".-
"Don chew know iz all fake?"
-The matches are fixed,
the falls and the blood are real.-
"Jeez! Just how dumb are you?!!"
November 20, 1995 - Monday Night Raw
That conversation and hundreds like it is no stranger to a wrestling fan. When you grow up loving a business which makes its profit in the art of illusion and feigned reality, you frequently have to discuss the obvious-again, and again, and again. It is little wonder then, that fans that are smart to the business to any degree (and most of us are far less smart than we imagine), quickly grow weary and a bit elitist in our attitudes towards those who feel the need to let us know just how phony wrestling is. I find myself (when I attend the rare wrestling card that comes to Colorado) instinctively moving away from those that either take the action too literally (i.e. "still believe"), or are too dismissive of what they are about to pay upwards of $40 to watch. Both groups make me uncomfortable. Instead, I tend to gravitate towards the kids in the line.
They believe and they believe in a way that is not only enjoyable, innocent and refreshing, but also reminds me of how I used to be before I became "wise" to the business. The kids that are excitedly waiting in line to enter the building are all too reminiscent of my own boy…the one that I have unsuccessfully attempted to bury for the last 40 years. I like listening to the children excitedly comment on how "John Cena is gonna kick Randy Orton's butt!" How they hope that "…Kane doesn't come near me-'cause he's scary!!" For them, the balloon of belief is still full and almost bursting at the seams. For all of my knowledge, they-the kids-are still the truest fans to wrestling.
But like everything else in the world, this idyllic moment gets shattered when some obnoxious bastard invites himself into the conversation simply to inform all within earshot that wrestling is a work. Some (usually) overweight, twenty-something, greasy guy who just *has* to show the world that he is smarter than a ten-year-old. He just feels the need to put the first pin in the balloon. Wrestling is a work!!!!
So…what?
There were people like that when I was a child too. They didn't use smart terms, they simply felt the need to inform me that wrestling was fake. I never once recall asking them a question, but they always were too willing to supply the answer. What they didn't know was that I already knew that wrestling was a work-and I still loved it and still wanted to see the matches. I learned about wrestling being a work when I sat ringside and saw Ivan Putski "work" a match. He was so loose and so sloppy with what he did in the ring that even the most ardent of believers could not have honestly said that what he did was real. He was simply bad. He was bad because he was so obvious. So, I knew wrestling was worked. I simply didn't appreciate Joe Blow feeling that he had to let me know that.
Why?
I never recall any adult telling a child that the Circus performers aren't really slipping from their trapeze momentarily by design, or that the clowns aren't real. I have never heard a person stand up in the middle of a movie at the local Metroplex to declare that everything that we are watching on the screen is fictional. I have never heard a parent inform their child that the Muppets aren't really alive. So why do so many jerks feel the need to "expose" something that doesn't need an exposé?
To show how smart they are.
I'm guilty of it. So is every fan who ever fell in love with the business side of wrestling. But after awhile, the need to tell all the secrets of the business wears thin, and most people go back to being fans. They simply have a different perspective than before. Where, as a child, I used to hang on the edge of my chair watching the match in progress, being drawn into the drama unfolding; now it is different. From the time that I became engrossed in the business side of wrestling, I watched the matches to see just how well (or poorly) the guys in the ring would perform. I no longer cared who won. Now I cared about who did their job the best, and what I could learn by watching closely. It was still entertaining and fascinating to me.
But that came with a price.
Once you become so-called "smart", you rarely have "mark-out" moments. Moments where you become fully invested in your belief or suspension of disbelief. The time when you totally get into the drama of the match. If a mark-out moment *does* happen, you almost are embarrassed that you let yourself "fall" for it. I clearly recall the backlash from the night that Shawn Michaels "collapsed" in a match against the late Owen Hart. After the incident was revealed to be a magnificently executed work, the smart fans came screaming with their pens poisoned. How DARE people toy with their emotions?!!! Nah-"we knew it was a work the whole time..yeah, we did. I swear we did!!!!"
Instead of sitting back and enjoying the fact that they were worked in a masterful way, most of the smart fans were simply embarrassed, chagrined, or furious. They were too smart for wrestling-yet they still were worked. They couldn't re-inflate that balloon of belief and innocence from childhood, and so went their joy. The only joy that they had-being smarter than the average fan-had crumbled. They couldn't enjoy the moment as they once did, and they had their current means of joy pushed back into their faces. What a predicament!
Me? Hell-I was as fooled as everyone else. I thought that I was seeing a real moment in life, not a work in progress. When I discovered that it was a work, far from being upset, I was intrigued beyond belief. I dissected that angle down to its bones. Everyone from Michaels, to the referee, to Jim Cornette, Owen Hart and the announce team pulled it off perfectly. It was a work-a work of art.
It made me remember why I still loved wrestling. It also made me realize how much I had lost by trading in belief for being smart.
I will never be a child again. I will never be able to reassemble my balloon. I still love wrestling, although the modern product is not exactly to my tastes. There are many things that I simply cannot bring back.
But what I CAN do is join in the belief of the ones who still have a fully-inflated balloon! The next time I hear a youngster talking about how Dean Ambrose is going to kick Seth Rollins' butt, I can chime in with my superior smartness and reply: "Yeah he is!!!"
Something to consider the next time you attend a match-maybe?
They believe and they believe in a way that is not only enjoyable, innocent and refreshing, but also reminds me of how I used to be before I became "wise" to the business. The kids that are excitedly waiting in line to enter the building are all too reminiscent of my own boy…the one that I have unsuccessfully attempted to bury for the last 40 years. I like listening to the children excitedly comment on how "John Cena is gonna kick Randy Orton's butt!" How they hope that "…Kane doesn't come near me-'cause he's scary!!" For them, the balloon of belief is still full and almost bursting at the seams. For all of my knowledge, they-the kids-are still the truest fans to wrestling.
But like everything else in the world, this idyllic moment gets shattered when some obnoxious bastard invites himself into the conversation simply to inform all within earshot that wrestling is a work. Some (usually) overweight, twenty-something, greasy guy who just *has* to show the world that he is smarter than a ten-year-old. He just feels the need to put the first pin in the balloon. Wrestling is a work!!!!
So…what?
There were people like that when I was a child too. They didn't use smart terms, they simply felt the need to inform me that wrestling was fake. I never once recall asking them a question, but they always were too willing to supply the answer. What they didn't know was that I already knew that wrestling was a work-and I still loved it and still wanted to see the matches. I learned about wrestling being a work when I sat ringside and saw Ivan Putski "work" a match. He was so loose and so sloppy with what he did in the ring that even the most ardent of believers could not have honestly said that what he did was real. He was simply bad. He was bad because he was so obvious. So, I knew wrestling was worked. I simply didn't appreciate Joe Blow feeling that he had to let me know that.
Why?
I never recall any adult telling a child that the Circus performers aren't really slipping from their trapeze momentarily by design, or that the clowns aren't real. I have never heard a person stand up in the middle of a movie at the local Metroplex to declare that everything that we are watching on the screen is fictional. I have never heard a parent inform their child that the Muppets aren't really alive. So why do so many jerks feel the need to "expose" something that doesn't need an exposé?
To show how smart they are.
I'm guilty of it. So is every fan who ever fell in love with the business side of wrestling. But after awhile, the need to tell all the secrets of the business wears thin, and most people go back to being fans. They simply have a different perspective than before. Where, as a child, I used to hang on the edge of my chair watching the match in progress, being drawn into the drama unfolding; now it is different. From the time that I became engrossed in the business side of wrestling, I watched the matches to see just how well (or poorly) the guys in the ring would perform. I no longer cared who won. Now I cared about who did their job the best, and what I could learn by watching closely. It was still entertaining and fascinating to me.
But that came with a price.
Once you become so-called "smart", you rarely have "mark-out" moments. Moments where you become fully invested in your belief or suspension of disbelief. The time when you totally get into the drama of the match. If a mark-out moment *does* happen, you almost are embarrassed that you let yourself "fall" for it. I clearly recall the backlash from the night that Shawn Michaels "collapsed" in a match against the late Owen Hart. After the incident was revealed to be a magnificently executed work, the smart fans came screaming with their pens poisoned. How DARE people toy with their emotions?!!! Nah-"we knew it was a work the whole time..yeah, we did. I swear we did!!!!"
Instead of sitting back and enjoying the fact that they were worked in a masterful way, most of the smart fans were simply embarrassed, chagrined, or furious. They were too smart for wrestling-yet they still were worked. They couldn't re-inflate that balloon of belief and innocence from childhood, and so went their joy. The only joy that they had-being smarter than the average fan-had crumbled. They couldn't enjoy the moment as they once did, and they had their current means of joy pushed back into their faces. What a predicament!
Me? Hell-I was as fooled as everyone else. I thought that I was seeing a real moment in life, not a work in progress. When I discovered that it was a work, far from being upset, I was intrigued beyond belief. I dissected that angle down to its bones. Everyone from Michaels, to the referee, to Jim Cornette, Owen Hart and the announce team pulled it off perfectly. It was a work-a work of art.
It made me remember why I still loved wrestling. It also made me realize how much I had lost by trading in belief for being smart.
I will never be a child again. I will never be able to reassemble my balloon. I still love wrestling, although the modern product is not exactly to my tastes. There are many things that I simply cannot bring back.
But what I CAN do is join in the belief of the ones who still have a fully-inflated balloon! The next time I hear a youngster talking about how Dean Ambrose is going to kick Seth Rollins' butt, I can chime in with my superior smartness and reply: "Yeah he is!!!"
Something to consider the next time you attend a match-maybe?
Unique content strictly for the Professional Wrestling Historical Society.
Once the Balloon Is Popped It Is Impossible To Re-Inflate.
Author: Harry Grover.
Published: October 30, 2014.
Article: #74.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
Once the Balloon Is Popped It Is Impossible To Re-Inflate.
Author: Harry Grover.
Published: October 30, 2014.
Article: #74.
Editor: Jimmy Wheeler.
Other articles by Harry can be Read Here.