Q What has 24 Arms, 24 Legs and 6 Teeth?
Q: What has 24 arms, 24 legs and 6 teeth?
A: The front row of any wrestling crowd.
The above joke is one of the oldest when it comes to pro wrestling fans. When I became a fan in the early '70s, and the Bearman Dave McKigney would bring his show to my hometown, that joke had some truth to it. It always surprised me, even at 8 years old, that all the scummiest people in town would be at the arena for the show. The town drunks, the bullies from the school yard and the creepy guy that took your ticket at the movie theatre were all there. I was always perplexed by the fact that I seemed to enjoy something that brought out the dregs of society.
Then, in the '90s. things began to change a bit with the advent of the internet.
Now, all of a sudden, there seemed to be a lot of really intelligent, clever people discussing and debating the good, bad and ugly aspects of pro wrestling. For the first time ever, questions that had plagued my brain since childhood could now be easily answered. I found that whole period fascinating. Cool people liked wrestling too!
Now, unfortunately, with the recent addition of the comment board on the LAW website, I have to wonder if things are beginning to digress. It seems that there are a lot of people out there that just like to post and insult everybody associated with the LAW as well as each other.
Now, I'm all for freedom of speech. Everyone should have their chance to have their say. This isn't aimed at the people that want to have me thrown off the LAW or who don't like me as a host. You are allowed to have your opinion. This also isn't aimed at those who do provide insightful and intelligent commentary. You guys are always welcome.
What ultimately bothers me is the way people so quickly resort to insults and threats to try and get their points across. People, if you take one thing away from this article, it should be this: No one listens to someone who is insulting them. If you can create an argument and justify your thoughts rationally, then fine, people will listen. However, if you resort to calling people assholes, drunks, crackheads or whatever other petty things you can come up with, you won't get anywhere.
The best recent examples are posters who have been commenting about how bad my interview a few weeks ago with Austin Aries was. I agree, actually. I thought it was terrible, but not because of anything I did. Yes, he was on the show to promote the ROH show in Markham (where he had a great chain match with Jimmy Jacobs), but that does not mean I can't ask about other parts of his career.
He was in TNA, and it's fair game to ask about that. He is a public figure, and he hadn't been on the show since the break with TNA, and there were parts of that story that I felt needed clarification. I gave Aries the chance to air his views on it, but he refused. That's fine. But when he went into kayfabe mode because he didn't like the line of questioning, that seemed unfair to me, so I ended the interview.
But instead of people offering up some positive criticism, many just continue to wail on, calling us assholes and such. You're never going to get taken seriously when you finish your points with "you goddamn imbecile."
But even more scary than that was the posts that turned up when we announced that we were moving our Monday night parties to another O' Grady's in Toronto, one located in the Gay Village. I could not believe the comments that appeared bashing homosexuals and us for having the parties there. John Pollock had to remove many of the comments because they were so offensive.
It is people like this that cause wrestling to never rise above the dregs. Thanks to comments from vindictive and immature fans, it just reinforces the stereotype that you're all nothing but a bunch of idiots, who, I might add, don't even have the guts to use your real names when you spew your hatred.
Think about this for a second. If there are any of you out there that hope that maybe one day the wrestlers will get what they deserve like health care and proper time off, or even just respect for what they do, well, you're working against that with your thoughtless comments.
Why do you think the government in the USA didn't do anything after the Chris Benoit tragedy and investigate the problems in pro wrestling? One of the reasons is that wrestling is still considered the domain of trailer park trash, rednecks and other casualties of society. They won't take it seriously because they think all the fans are just dummies and don't care anyway. Let the wrestlers kill themselves, the fans don't care.
Please, when you think about making comments, try to do it in a civilized and respectful way. It's all right to be critical, but that's not just saying, "Hey, you guys on the LAW are nothing but a bunch dumb homeless assholes who are smoking crack."
Thank you.
