5 Stupidest Questions Wrestling Fans Get Asked
1. You Do You Know It's Fake, Don't You?
Yes, we do. Nobody over the age of seven years old has believed wrestling to be real since the late 1980s.
It's difficult to determine from where this line of enquiry originates. Wrestling is patently predetermined, but so by definition is every other form of fiction. It may have something to do with the way in which it is filmed.
WWE in particular has long since given up on the idea of presenting wrestling as a form of legitimate competition - so much so that they notoriously failed in their attempts to rename it sports entertainment - but they still tape it live on front of an arena audience.
Perhaps people find it difficult to reconcile the live environment with the scripted content. It's not as if the theatre has been in existence for several centuries, after all. Watching a movie being filmed on the set must be a similarly jarring experience, yet it is easy enough to suspend disbelief once the reel has been spliced up in the editing suite. We shouldn't be decried as idiots for having superior imaginations.
Wrestling fans are often told that they should "graduate" to UFC, which is insulting. MMA is an entity unto itself, but the vague similarities - they're surrounded by a cage, but actually hit one another! - are enough for the non-fan to act condescending despite being hugely ill-informed.
It's fake - not fixed - but the clever sh*tes, ironically, are the ones unable to tell the difference.