WWE Near Fall: Debunking Stereotypes of The Wrestling Fan

The loyal fans of WWE are the best there can be.  The common perception of a professional wrestling fan is they are poor and uneducated, an unpopular medium, and a small fraction of the TV audience, yet these are all broad concepts that are misinformed.

Professional wrestling started as a circus act in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  At the time the bouts on the card would last from 45 minutes to over an hour.  That was before wrestling matches were staged and had a fixed outcome. 

The popularity steadily grew afterwards and had a boom in the 1960’s with the medium of Television being readily available in the average American home.  It produced stars such as “The Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.  

At this time many, children began idolizing the wrestlers and some had a dream of having a professional match in their life, like comedy star Andy Kaufman.

In the 1970s, he had a staged match with Memphis wrestling superstar Jerry “The King” Lawler.  Andy was not the crowd favorite, he was what insiders and fans in the know call a “heel”, where a wrestler is specifically trying to have the crowd boo him, the bad guy. 

A way that Andy did this was to play up the stereotype of the dumb, lazy and dirty wrestling fan, while using his Hollywood status to say he was better than the fans.  It worked wonderfully and used the stereotype of a wrestling fan against them.

With wrestling at the height of its popularity in the 80’s and 90’s, the consensus was that wrestling fans were still from a low-income household. 

But what some people don’t seem to understand is that wrestling, especially that of WWE, or at the time WWF, was on prime time television on Saturday night bringing in big ratings with its brand of superstars like Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, Andre the Giant. 

All of those wrestlers have been in major films and are part of the American pop culture.  In the 1980s, professional wrestling was popular with kids.  

Their parents, seeing wrestling as either a phase or a substitute to other dangerous behaviors, were willing to spend money to keep their child involved.  For some the phase passed, for others it grew. 

Currently, WWE is trying to get the family aspect back into the product, much to the chagrin of the older fans.

When many of the kids grew up and got out of college and were supporting themselves, they found their way back to wrestling in the late 1990’s and it led to a huge boom in viewers and marketing revenue for WWE. 

In the late 1990’s wrestling became the most popular show in cable television pulling in over 10 million viewers a week, with fans spending money hand over fist on their products.  

When fans from the past went back to the WWE they didn’t find the same type of family friendly programming they remembered.  Wrestling had matured along with them and there were blatant themes of sexuality and a heightened level of violence. 

With the amount of tickets sold and merchandise putting many of the wrestlers in the million dollar range yearly, the casual fan would have to have spent enough to prove that they are not in the low-income range. 

Of course the fans know that wrestling is staged, they are simply enjoying the entertainment aspect of the show, much like a movie or television fan.  Those are scripted just like wrestling.

The crowd showed up in droves during the boom in the 1990’s, where some of the major wrestling stars found mainstream success in film and other mediums like Stone Cold Steve Austin who starred on TV’s Nash Bridges and recently starred in The Condemned.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starred in numerous films, most recently the high octane action film "Faster." 

Then Mick Foley, who was a New York Times bestselling author when his autobiography was released, outselling authors like Dominic Dunne and Anne Rule.  The success of these three wrestlers has showcased that a professional wrestler and wrestling can be mainstream. 

Compared to another medium, Comic Books are popular and not as badly received as wrestling.  Comic books have been around for decades and they can be considered mainstream with high grossing films and merchandise. 

But the medium’s top selling book in October was only sold upwards of 150,000 copies nationwide.  Batman is considered an American icon, yet his book only sells in the 70,000 unit range, while wrestling gets three weekly programs and 1-2 monthly pay per views all averaging over 100,000 buys.

WWE’s television program RAW has been one of the highest rated cable television show weekly, and their pay per view buy rates are substantial, but not as great as they once were.

In 1993, WWE premiered its Monday night prime time cable TV show RAW, and it has been one of the top rated shows on cable ever since.  The ratings are large enough to keep wrestling on the air for over a decade. 

Finally, the popular concept of wrestling from the media or other sports is that it’s fake and a detriment to society.  But it is just athletic entertainment. 

Yes, the matches and story lines are scripted.  Yet that is all the fun, Olympic style wrestling, while very respectable, is not as entertaining. 

Wrestling fans are in the know on the sport, there is a growing fan base with every generation, and it pulls in ratings that other cable networks would dream of getting.

The cost of wrestling pay per views run from $35-55 dollars, while the average Boxing/ MMA pay per view is $60.

If a boxing fan pays $60 for a main event fight, the risk of it being a flop, or over quickly, is there.  But when a fan orders a wrestling event he knows he is getting his money's worth.

Now who is more educated in economics?