Thursday, January 14, 2010

The Worst Criticism of E-Fedding Ever

Oooh, a post!

As many of you know, my love for wrestling has been rekindled in the last two years, so much so that it's grown my interests past the WWE and the other company masquerading as a major wrestling promotion (TNA for the rubes out there). Chikara is pretty much my favorite fed going right now. With their comic lucharesu stylings, it's hard not to see why. Their message board can be rough sometimes. It's a great read for the most part, but when they start getting on the hate train, well, game over, man, game over.

One such example of this came in about e-fedding. Look on Page 3 and get this nugget of blissful ignorance:
if you want to pretend to be a wrestler find a shitty wrestling school and train. or find a good wrestling school and train.

dont sit in your house typing about how hardcore your imaginary personality is...

There's training centers all over --- if you live in the north east theres litterally 100's of places you can learn, and im sure a smattering everywhere else as well. Some you can get good deals at.

Just become a wrestler. even if its for a little bit.
Oooh, where to start.

For one, most people who participate in e-fedding, at least in the FW/PTC corner, can't just pick up and go to wrestling school. For some, they can't afford it. For others, they're too entrenched in their real careers and just do e-fedding as a game or *shudder* hobby. For some others, health concerns get in the way. It's way easier said than done, people.

Two, wrestling is a fucked up business. Let me repeat that, wrestling is a fucked up business. You take body-degrading bumps every night you work. You travel long distances in cramped cars, or have to end up spending all your purse if you want to fly to where you're going. You work for sleazy promoters. You may end up getting addicted to painkillers just to deal with the aches and pains. You share a locker room with some of the most depraved individuals ever (I've heard the stories, they're not pretty). I mean, God bless people who have the mental constitution to enter the business, but it's not for everyone. Why should people who want to express their fandom by pretending to be a wrestler compromise their relatively normal lives for the freakshow that is professional wrestling?

Three, people e-fed to express their creativity (or try to at least). In wrestling, even at the low indie level, your creativity is stifled from the very start. You have bookers and writers telling you what your gimmick is and what you're supposed to say. Granted, there's way more freedom at the indie level than there is in the terribly-scripted WWE or TNA, but still, a lot of times, you don't have control over your content. Screw that, unless the fedhead you're working for is a total douche, you have complete freedom. No restraints at all. Sometimes, this can be a bad thing, but I'd rather err on the side of letting people be free rather than restricting them.

Honestly, this criticism of e-fedding smacks of ignorant elitism. Oooh, let's make fun of the roleplayers! They're D&D nerds! My response? So fucking what? Everyone has their nerdy side, and if they don't, well, they probably have anuses tighter than an infant's belly button. Next thing you know, they'll be saying you can't play fantasy football unless you try out for the NFL, or that you can't criticize actors unless you were in a school play. Total and complete horsecrap.

There's no better way to express your fandom for wrestling than to pretend that you're a wrestler. Live vicariously through e-fedding (and through Smackdown vs. RAW or other video games). Keep your health and your creativity intact. This is a great game. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

7 comments:

Castor von Strife said...

Man, that's like telling someone to put down Call of Duty and join the Marines. I'll go that person one further: how about instead of training to be a pro-wrestler, you train in REAL grappling and compete without a booking. I've been grappling since I was 16 (Judo for 10 years, BJJ for 4), and I take pleasure knowing that I can get pretend to be a wrestler over the internet while simultaneously being able to out-grapple them (well, pound for pound. Triple H would murder me!).


-Billy F

Stabhappy said...

I agree. It's like saying, hey, don't read a book about fucking space, become an astronaut! Part of being a human being is understanding your limitations, or understanding that you don't have to experience every possible thing in the Universe and can just, y'know, enjoy PRETENDING sometimes. They call it escapism, but you can hear the bitterness in the words. Plus, y'know, dude can't complete a sentence, so obviously I'm not sure how many life lessons he can really spread.

Castor von Strife said...

DUDE, don't read Lord of the Rings! You go to Mordor, and you cast that thing into the fire yourself! Pussy.

Kevin Healey said...

Whoever wrote that didn't really think it through.

Or, maybe he did and that's what he came up with. I'd hate rping too if I couldn't put a coherent thought together.

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I really enjoyed reading your blog. Everything you said about "the business" was true and to the point.

Would you be interested in reposting this on our website?

http://www.ewnexus.com

We'd love to affiliate with the fine work you're doing here.

Kind regards,
Dave

Thomas Ford said...

Hey, I made my first check off of e-wrestling.

He can suck my money earning ass cheek.

Anonymous said...

While I was only in the wrestling business for just over ayear, I did train at Ohio Valley Wrestling before they became a WWE developmental agency. Tom you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Wrestling is a fucked up business. I was very fortunate I never got seriously hurt while I wrestled, but I also stopped at a good time since I didn't want to put myself in a situation where I got so hurt I couldn't support my family.

But in all honesty, speaking as a former professional wrestler, who enjoys e-fedding, some people just can't comprehend that what drives us to create characters for e-wrestling in the first place, is because we love wrestling! We love it and though I am sure some of us would jump at the chance to be an actual wrestler, to take the love and admiration you have for something you enjoy, combine it with your own imagination and come up with something completely original is really a sincere form of fandom.

Excellent analysis here Tom.

-Jason Payne