I have a theory that somewhere along the way, either after having to repeatedly defend pro wrestling to outsiders or from the shame of being an adult pro wrestling fan, it just became easier for hardcore fans to act like we were immune from being worked.
In pro wrestling parlance, to "be worked" means to buy into the elements of the story being presented as authentic, and not a show.
In negative terms "to be worked" also means to be tricked or otherwise deceived by someone in order for them to gain something from you.
Pro wrestlers "work" the crowd to get them to pay money to attend the next set of matches or to buy merchandise or watch the television show or pay per view.
Professional Wrestling is an odd beast. Its roots as a carnival spectacle dedicated to "working" the "marks" (fans or dupes) to get their money still influences people's perceptions of the art form to this day.
There's something about its unique blend of live action sport and daring theatrics presented as legitimate that prevents otherwise rational adults from understanding suspension of disbelief.
It's as if this disconnect gives people the license to say the most vicious and cruel things to wrestling fans about the sport we love.
I learned at a young age that it wasn't cool or even acceptable to be a wrestling fan. Accidentally revealing my fandom in an unsafe environment meant recoiling in horror as the other kids and sometimes even the adults in my life took turns getting their shots in.
"Pro Wrestling??!?" I remember a respected teacher guffawing once; with all the tact you'd expect of an adult trampling on a kid's dreams, "Don't you know that it's all fake?"
It's galling being told how infantile pro wrestling is from a culture obsessed with brain-dead sitcoms, reality television, and superhero movies.
Is attending a wrestling match any more ridiculous or silly than wanting to spend a day at the movies? You lose it when Iron-Man makes the comeback and takes out Thanos; I lose it when Eddie Kingston hits the uraken and pins Jun Akiyama in the center of the ring to achieve his lifelong wrestling dream. Are we any different?
What if you took this antagonistic attitude of "it's all fake" to other forms of entertainment people looked to for comfort and joy in their lives?
Imagine going up to a parent and a young child enjoying The Muppet Movie and stopping to tell them "You know Muppets aren't real, totally a dude with his hand up some felt puppet". You'd be correct, but well you'd also be a gigantic asshole for pointing it out.
Try and interrupt someone talking about how much they loved the film "Titanic" to interject "just so you know Leonardo DiCaprio isn't dead, he was just acting, Jack isn't a real person" people would think you were both crazy and an asshole.
I think it says more about the person unwilling to let the art touch their emotions then it does about the person crying while watching a movie.
I'm fascinated by the pathology of the mind of the person who thinks that wrestling fans don't know it's a show.
It's the same subtle undercurrent of someone at magic show loudly boasting to all who will listen how he "knows that woman wasn't really sawn in half and you're all dopes for clapping".
I think that sometime in their lives they must have had something they loved so much and they also had someone they respected or loved stomp all over it.
When that happens you can either hide the thing you love and close up to the world, or you can harden and rationalize everything as stupid or worthless. Much easier not to care about anything when nothing has any value.
Twisted to its worst conclusions that negative impulse caused me to lose the fan inside of me, and it left me a bitter, condescending, and viciously mean jerk.
The dreaded term used to describe such a misguided fan is a pejorative portmanteau known as a "smark". For those who are not familiar, smark is a combination of the words "smart" and "mark".
Originally wielded as an insult by wrestlers and fans at the worst elements of the fandom, "smark" quickly became a self identifying badge of honor amongst fans who knew "everything" there is to know about wrestling.
The problem with that approach is that it's very much like seeing the sausage being made. Most people don't have any appetite for a hot dog afterwards.
When we boil everything down to a granular level and put it under a microscope to study it we destroy what makes it special in the first place.
I had consumed and studied so much pro wrestling I was incapable of enjoying it at the level that made me a lifelong fan in the first place.
I'd go to indie shows and dissect each match. If a wrestler used a move taken from Japan or Mexico I would loudly let everyone how I knew it was "stolen".
I had an ability to detect wrestlers that couldn't deal with hecklers and I would brutalize them with my words. When you are watching a wrestling show in a high school gym it doesn't take much voice projection to shout barbs the whole crowd can hear.
These weren't just boos or light hearted insults directed towards the bad guys. This was vicious jeering that even a drunken sports heckler would feel bad about once he sobered up.
I'd like to share another memory because I think it's important to illustrate the disparity between the miserable "smark" heckler fan I grew into and the much happier fan I was as a child.
7 year old me didn't care about backstage drama, rumors, or contract negotiations. I loved face paint, masks, and clobberin'. Give me all the big, massive hosses, the taller and burlier, the better.
To my older brother and I there was no cooler team than the duo of The Barbarian and The Warlord; managed by the dastardly Mr. Fuji they were known as the "Powers of Pain".
Hulking masses of men decked out in face paint and fur. To kids addicted to sword and sorcery movies, He-Man toys, and cartoons you couldn't have designed a cooler tag team.
We loved them so much our mother made us homemade costumes and painted our faces for Halloween the first year they joined the WWF.
This was before the age of the internet and we didn't have any reference photos for the face paint so you'll have to forgive us for the fact that we used our Remco Road Warriors AWA action figures as the guide. Kind of fitting given how much of a clone the Powers of Pain were to Hawk and Animal.
Now this was a cold Poconos Fall so our mom insisted we wear nylon body stockings underneath the furs to simulate bare chests. I remember my brother and I protesting that we should be allowed to go out with no shirts at all, but with just vests, like Barbarian and Warlord would have wanted us to but our demands fell on deaf ears.
Look at the unbridled joy in that photo. Does that look like a couple of kids who care about what a "push" or "jobber" was? Or who has the best "work-rate"?
We just knew we loved Barbarian and Warlord, and that they could kick everyone's ass no question.
I knew that I loved The Orient Express. If I had known Kato was just Paul Diamond in a mask and not a deadly Far East Assassin who was the master of the Judo chop would I have cared about him at all?
I remember when my friends and I accidentally discovered how The Great Muta prepared for his poison mist attack and we all felt worse off for having learned that knowledge.
Leave a little mystery in the things that you love, because once you know them too well you become familiar, and familiarity breeds contempt, and one day you might wake up and find yourself hate watching the thing that you love; and that's not a fate I'd wish on anyone.
Kyle Giarratano has been a fan of pro wrestling for over 35 years, having been involved as a manager, ring announcer, and commentator. As well as having trained to wrestle at multiple facilities to gain an appreciation and understanding of the sport.
