How old were you when you started watching wrestling? And what federation hooked you? If you said “young” and “WWF/E” then you’re a pretty normal, if not stereotypical fan. Even if you said “WCW” it’s still the same, WCW was created in response to WWE’s growing pop culture relevance.
And, you know, Vince owns it now.
That first answer, though, that’s the key, you were a KID. Pro Wrestling is an inherently childish concept.
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It’s a bunch of chiseled strongmen wearing colorful superhero costumes or sometimes just underwear, doing over-the-top strength moves and fake punching villainous monsters who kidnap people and devise plans to overtake companies and sometimes sacrifice their daughters.
Many of them have super powers, too. Invisibility (U Can’t C Me), Teleportation (The Wyatt Family), Time Travel (The New Day), Worm Control (The Boogeyman), Immortality (The Undertaker), Fire Manipulation (Kane), Lightning Bolts (Taker, again), Flight (Neville), Shape Shifting (Finn Bálor), Super Intellligence (Enzo), and my personal favorite, Cypher From The New Mutants If He Looked Like Jason Statham (Cesaro).
It’s ridiculous but it’s fun.
As adults, it taps into that part of our brain that won’t let go of our juvenile tendencies and innocent wonder. I think it’s called the Nostalgium Oblongata. It’s why we still tune in, complain, then get excited by Monday afternoon to do it all over again.
See those goofballs pushing 40 and chasing invisible creatures with their phones down the street and into oncoming traffic? Business oriented minds don’t see that; they see money being printed.
Guess who didn’t play Pokemon when they were little? The killjoys of the world. The rich, rich CEO killjoys.
For about 10 years, a certain tobacco company had a cartoon “camel” named Joe shilling cigarettes to the public. The “public” was code for “children that like cartoon animals,” not self respecting grown-ups who would scoff at any talking entity with a phallic shape sticking out of their face. That’s just silly.
Anyway, the idea was to get kids thinking Joe was a hip, cool dude that played billiards and wore a leather jacket, I guess because in the 80’s kids loved the idea of 50s greasers and bumpy horses from the middle east.
So yes, get the kids interested in the product so that when they get older, that’s what they’ll spend their money on. And you, the parent whose favorite time of the year is the PWG December DVD Sale?
Just buy your offspring WWE licensed stuff now, quick, before you die.
