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So much more. The problem wasn’t even sheets that were usually avoidable or following stories, it was fans ruining everything. Telling you things from who you should enjoy and how you were wrong for not liking what they did. It sucks because you want discussion, but you don’t want the stupidity with it.
If I could staple one thing on the top of every post, it's that tastes are subjective and different people like different stuff! That doesn't mean they're wrong for liking it!
The IWC was quickly killing off any interest I had in watching wrestling. Leaving this sub and severely limiting what social media I interact without outside of Reddit made watching wrestling a lot more enjoyable.
Nah, I actually have zero problem following AEW without reading the dirtsheets. I've basically stopped reading this sub on and off whenever the majority of this sub is going to hate something I liked and I'm like, nah, I'm not gonna argue uphill about it.
More, the answer is always more.
It's also why I never have any friends irl who are a part of the IWC. I've brought plenty of people to watch it live and we have an absolute blast. Most recent show I took a friend to was WrestleDream and they had a blast.
You don't get spoiled and you don't get worked into thinking that things that aren't going to happen is going to happen. For example, I wasn't really keeping up during the autumn and I assumed Punk was coming back at War Games. It was obvious from watching the actual show. But most of the IWC thought he wasn't since the dirtsheets said he likely won't.
I also tend to be less hypercritical or a show when I don't keep up with complaints online. Take the Cody thing for example. I didn't go around crying and complaining about it. I just figured "I'll see what happens".
A little less tbh, I have 1 friend that's as into it as I am and friend that I got into AEW but doesn't care about anything outside that bubble, pretty much everyone else I spend time with regularly share other interests with me instead, and I like talking about wrestling
As someone who has taken a step back from being on here; absolutely! People seem to forget, wrestling, at it's core, is a *tv show.* and once you approach it more like that, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. I don't interact with every fandom for things I like. So why should wrestling be any different?
When I did, I enjoyed being "worked" a lot more.
IWC has a major problem with being worked. It makes them feel less smart of a fan.
The industry does it constantly (like the current situation with Rock/Cody/Roman) and fans will always fall for it despite thinking otherwise.
In the end, we originally started watching this because we suspended of belief and accepted the blurred lines of reality that wrestling gives us. It's okay to get worked. It's part of the fun.
I can’t imagine being an adult, and letting what other people like or don’t like dictate your feelings. Or, being an adult, and thinking that this is the same for everyone.
i sroppes reading dirtsheets like two years ago and it made me enjoy wrestling more, i've always thlight about what direction stories could go to more than anything else, and now i do it even more, i have fun talking about it as if it was all real
i left twitter a couple years ago and the answer is definitely yes. when all you see constantly is negativity, it skews your viewpoint. i remember i tweeted something that WWE did well, and i had the rabid side of AEW fans telling me how stupid i was...i'd tweet about AEW and the rabid side of WWE fans would tell me i'm an idiot. it's hard to enjoy wrestling that way. reddit still can be negative, but you can at least downvote the crazy negativity
I really enjoy wrestling the same amounts no matter if I'm on reddit or not. Generally throughout my whole life I'll watch, but stupid stuff like Fiend vs Rollins HIAC or Goldberg vs Anybody will turn me off to wrestling for a while.
Sadly, WWE is leaning further into what AEW was doing, which is seamlessly blending their TV shows with "extra" content online. To me there's nothing worse than watching every major show from a brand, only to not know what's going on because you didn't watch some YT video or missed some tweet or whatever. At least WWE production is good enough to summarize what you missed. Haven't watched AEW in a while.
I loved wrestling when I was a kid. I grew up during super-cena and he was my guy. After getting on IWC I kinda just became cynical about wrestling, but also I discovered a lot of great indie stuff. I'd say depends on your opinion of the product. If you like to be sports entertained then the IWC probably isn't for you. If you like AEW, NJPW and rewatching old ROH clips and crying that you'll never see it live as it was then maybe the IWC is for you.
I've always enjoyed it for what it was. But I did listen to Meltzer and Alvarez several years back for a while. Until I finally had enough and turned them off.
As I witnessed in the few years before AEW's inception and their first few years were everything they did was declared incredible, I realized why exactly I was a fan and why I never went down that road.
Those people are absolutely miserable
Nah once you open behind the curtain so to speak you can never go back to just kayfabe watching.
It's never the same without onowing what's happening behind closed doors. It's like eating chicken without seasoning.
As someone who has taken a step back from being on here; absolutely! People seem to forget, wrestling, at it's core, is a *tv show.* and once you approach it more like that, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. I don't interact with every fandom for things I like. So why should wrestling be any different?
This happened by complete accident but I watched the Rumble this year and didn’t see any Reddit, YouTube, Instagram or Facebook posts about spoilers or anything like that.
The only thing I did was watch along with Steve and Larson Going in Raw Podcast and they were good at keeping the spoilers quiet (I also turned off chat while watching with them).
So I wasn’t spoiled by any surprise returns or entrants at all. I loved the show and thought it was one of the better Rumbles in the past 5 years. So I’m making it a point to stay away from the IWC during a PLE weekend to avoid anything like that in the future. During normal build up, I’m sane enough to enjoy both the shows and the IWC.
Edit: fixed a typo
Interacting with IWC has always been a mostly negative experience yet I still occasionally come back because I apparently can't help myself. Obviously, it doesn't describe everyone but there are too many very opinionated malcontents I would never tolerate or associate with in real life (and I am sure they would not me, I have no idea). They are just too many deeply unpleasant people within the community.
However, I still like reading some of the discussions and theories. I just find I enjoy wrestling more when I don't engage.
The problem with being a wrestling fan is that, unless you literally have no idea it's fake, you have to pay attention to social media nowadays in case your favorite wrestler is injured or just sitting in catering or got fired, because you'd have no idea otherwise.
Aside from that, it felt pretty nice.
I definitely enjoy shows more by not using the live threads. It’s like having someone who just wants to have a bad time complaining right next to you while you sit in a sports bar for 4 hours.
I’ve never really left once I realised wrestling was a work but I’ll mostly not look at any live threads or anything like that. I find I can still get excited for PPVs/matches, so I’d say it’s not affecting my enjoyment much if at all.
If there’s a PPV I haven’t watched though I’ll not look at any wrestling media until I watch it though
I was a teenager during the Monday night wars. I was always on the internet for news. I fell off in early 2000’s. Now I just keep up with podcasts and if something seems really good I will check it out on YouTube. Watching a whole show seems like work now to get thru the shit to the good stuff.
Without a doubt definitely much, much, more. My peak wrestling fandom was 2002 after that I would follow online but rarely watch live. My main exposure was the video games but I dropped out massively during the rise of Cena.
I was into rock music and found the whole white rapper spinning alloys, American imperialists yay Military schtick so cringe.
I was asked by a group of lads to watch mania 25 for the novelty and the main match was HBK vs Taker. I had no idea who most of the roster was aside from those two and it ended up being so much fun.
I kinda came back a bit after that during the punk and Bryan years but I never enjoyed watching or reading about the shows it was more out of habit than anything really.
I see a lot of this "there's no such thing as a casual fan" or the "iwc doesn't exist because everyone has social media". The thing is that's not true. There are people who will only watch the big shows, or see the big clips or be aware of the conversations that are happening without watching week to week, watching wrestletalk reviews or posting on Twitter.
There are people who have no fucking idea what the story is or even who Cody Rhodes are but will still end up watching mania.
Truth be told I think it's better that way. Because someone who has no clue is responding to what they see and that ends up illiciitng an emotional response. Whereas someone who reads everything goes in to confirm if their theory is right. If it is, they say it's boring and predictable; if not, their idea was better.
I think the major issue as well with the IWC is they aren't really discussing wrestling so much but whatever the wrestling "journalists" say. It's always the same news stories based on the writer's agenda who are hoping to shape the product. Your wrestletalks and cultaholics are lovely lads but they go to the same sources as each other constantly so it becomes this echo chamber. Even cornette, Dutch, and Conrad all have the same talking points because they direct their discussion points to the discourse of the IWC. And the thing is it's their meal ticket so they're not going to deviate from what drives clicks for the sake of journalistic integrity.
Doesn't really count towards your question, but the lack of dirt sheets for Japanese Wrestling makes the show more fun to watch.
For instance, I had no idea Nic Nemeth was gonna be at Wrestle Kingdom, and I was so hyped about it that I suddenly remembered how much I like him as a wrestler.
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For me, yeah lol. Wrestling is a lot more fun when you don’t got someone telling you how shit it is.
So true and it takes away from the The OMG factor . Like returns and an unexpected appearances etc.
It's fine to crap on it. But there comes a point where you're taking it far too seriously.
So much more. The problem wasn’t even sheets that were usually avoidable or following stories, it was fans ruining everything. Telling you things from who you should enjoy and how you were wrong for not liking what they did. It sucks because you want discussion, but you don’t want the stupidity with it.
If I could staple one thing on the top of every post, it's that tastes are subjective and different people like different stuff! That doesn't mean they're wrong for liking it!
The IWC was quickly killing off any interest I had in watching wrestling. Leaving this sub and severely limiting what social media I interact without outside of Reddit made watching wrestling a lot more enjoyable.
What promotions do you watch
Nah, I actually have zero problem following AEW without reading the dirtsheets. I've basically stopped reading this sub on and off whenever the majority of this sub is going to hate something I liked and I'm like, nah, I'm not gonna argue uphill about it.
More, the answer is always more. It's also why I never have any friends irl who are a part of the IWC. I've brought plenty of people to watch it live and we have an absolute blast. Most recent show I took a friend to was WrestleDream and they had a blast.
You don't get spoiled and you don't get worked into thinking that things that aren't going to happen is going to happen. For example, I wasn't really keeping up during the autumn and I assumed Punk was coming back at War Games. It was obvious from watching the actual show. But most of the IWC thought he wasn't since the dirtsheets said he likely won't. I also tend to be less hypercritical or a show when I don't keep up with complaints online. Take the Cody thing for example. I didn't go around crying and complaining about it. I just figured "I'll see what happens".
A little less tbh, I have 1 friend that's as into it as I am and friend that I got into AEW but doesn't care about anything outside that bubble, pretty much everyone else I spend time with regularly share other interests with me instead, and I like talking about wrestling
As someone who has taken a step back from being on here; absolutely! People seem to forget, wrestling, at it's core, is a *tv show.* and once you approach it more like that, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. I don't interact with every fandom for things I like. So why should wrestling be any different?
When I did, I enjoyed being "worked" a lot more. IWC has a major problem with being worked. It makes them feel less smart of a fan. The industry does it constantly (like the current situation with Rock/Cody/Roman) and fans will always fall for it despite thinking otherwise. In the end, we originally started watching this because we suspended of belief and accepted the blurred lines of reality that wrestling gives us. It's okay to get worked. It's part of the fun.
I can’t imagine being an adult, and letting what other people like or don’t like dictate your feelings. Or, being an adult, and thinking that this is the same for everyone.
i sroppes reading dirtsheets like two years ago and it made me enjoy wrestling more, i've always thlight about what direction stories could go to more than anything else, and now i do it even more, i have fun talking about it as if it was all real
I enjoy it more with r/SC, at time I find it more entertaining than the actual shows. Love reading the backstage stuff and seeing how people react it
i left twitter a couple years ago and the answer is definitely yes. when all you see constantly is negativity, it skews your viewpoint. i remember i tweeted something that WWE did well, and i had the rabid side of AEW fans telling me how stupid i was...i'd tweet about AEW and the rabid side of WWE fans would tell me i'm an idiot. it's hard to enjoy wrestling that way. reddit still can be negative, but you can at least downvote the crazy negativity
I really enjoy wrestling the same amounts no matter if I'm on reddit or not. Generally throughout my whole life I'll watch, but stupid stuff like Fiend vs Rollins HIAC or Goldberg vs Anybody will turn me off to wrestling for a while. Sadly, WWE is leaning further into what AEW was doing, which is seamlessly blending their TV shows with "extra" content online. To me there's nothing worse than watching every major show from a brand, only to not know what's going on because you didn't watch some YT video or missed some tweet or whatever. At least WWE production is good enough to summarize what you missed. Haven't watched AEW in a while.
I loved wrestling when I was a kid. I grew up during super-cena and he was my guy. After getting on IWC I kinda just became cynical about wrestling, but also I discovered a lot of great indie stuff. I'd say depends on your opinion of the product. If you like to be sports entertained then the IWC probably isn't for you. If you like AEW, NJPW and rewatching old ROH clips and crying that you'll never see it live as it was then maybe the IWC is for you.
I've always enjoyed it for what it was. But I did listen to Meltzer and Alvarez several years back for a while. Until I finally had enough and turned them off. As I witnessed in the few years before AEW's inception and their first few years were everything they did was declared incredible, I realized why exactly I was a fan and why I never went down that road. Those people are absolutely miserable
Nah once you open behind the curtain so to speak you can never go back to just kayfabe watching. It's never the same without onowing what's happening behind closed doors. It's like eating chicken without seasoning.
As someone who has taken a step back from being on here; absolutely! People seem to forget, wrestling, at it's core, is a *tv show.* and once you approach it more like that, it becomes a lot more enjoyable. I don't interact with every fandom for things I like. So why should wrestling be any different?
This happened by complete accident but I watched the Rumble this year and didn’t see any Reddit, YouTube, Instagram or Facebook posts about spoilers or anything like that. The only thing I did was watch along with Steve and Larson Going in Raw Podcast and they were good at keeping the spoilers quiet (I also turned off chat while watching with them). So I wasn’t spoiled by any surprise returns or entrants at all. I loved the show and thought it was one of the better Rumbles in the past 5 years. So I’m making it a point to stay away from the IWC during a PLE weekend to avoid anything like that in the future. During normal build up, I’m sane enough to enjoy both the shows and the IWC. Edit: fixed a typo
Interacting with IWC has always been a mostly negative experience yet I still occasionally come back because I apparently can't help myself. Obviously, it doesn't describe everyone but there are too many very opinionated malcontents I would never tolerate or associate with in real life (and I am sure they would not me, I have no idea). They are just too many deeply unpleasant people within the community. However, I still like reading some of the discussions and theories. I just find I enjoy wrestling more when I don't engage.
The problem with being a wrestling fan is that, unless you literally have no idea it's fake, you have to pay attention to social media nowadays in case your favorite wrestler is injured or just sitting in catering or got fired, because you'd have no idea otherwise. Aside from that, it felt pretty nice.
I definitely enjoy shows more by not using the live threads. It’s like having someone who just wants to have a bad time complaining right next to you while you sit in a sports bar for 4 hours.
I’ve never really left once I realised wrestling was a work but I’ll mostly not look at any live threads or anything like that. I find I can still get excited for PPVs/matches, so I’d say it’s not affecting my enjoyment much if at all. If there’s a PPV I haven’t watched though I’ll not look at any wrestling media until I watch it though
Not left it entirely but since I stopped remotely engaging with ratings chat it's much more fun. Next thing I need to cut out is ticket sale chat.
I was a teenager during the Monday night wars. I was always on the internet for news. I fell off in early 2000’s. Now I just keep up with podcasts and if something seems really good I will check it out on YouTube. Watching a whole show seems like work now to get thru the shit to the good stuff.
Without a doubt definitely much, much, more. My peak wrestling fandom was 2002 after that I would follow online but rarely watch live. My main exposure was the video games but I dropped out massively during the rise of Cena. I was into rock music and found the whole white rapper spinning alloys, American imperialists yay Military schtick so cringe. I was asked by a group of lads to watch mania 25 for the novelty and the main match was HBK vs Taker. I had no idea who most of the roster was aside from those two and it ended up being so much fun. I kinda came back a bit after that during the punk and Bryan years but I never enjoyed watching or reading about the shows it was more out of habit than anything really. I see a lot of this "there's no such thing as a casual fan" or the "iwc doesn't exist because everyone has social media". The thing is that's not true. There are people who will only watch the big shows, or see the big clips or be aware of the conversations that are happening without watching week to week, watching wrestletalk reviews or posting on Twitter. There are people who have no fucking idea what the story is or even who Cody Rhodes are but will still end up watching mania. Truth be told I think it's better that way. Because someone who has no clue is responding to what they see and that ends up illiciitng an emotional response. Whereas someone who reads everything goes in to confirm if their theory is right. If it is, they say it's boring and predictable; if not, their idea was better.
I think the major issue as well with the IWC is they aren't really discussing wrestling so much but whatever the wrestling "journalists" say. It's always the same news stories based on the writer's agenda who are hoping to shape the product. Your wrestletalks and cultaholics are lovely lads but they go to the same sources as each other constantly so it becomes this echo chamber. Even cornette, Dutch, and Conrad all have the same talking points because they direct their discussion points to the discourse of the IWC. And the thing is it's their meal ticket so they're not going to deviate from what drives clicks for the sake of journalistic integrity.
Doesn't really count towards your question, but the lack of dirt sheets for Japanese Wrestling makes the show more fun to watch. For instance, I had no idea Nic Nemeth was gonna be at Wrestle Kingdom, and I was so hyped about it that I suddenly remembered how much I like him as a wrestler.