I blame Bob Mould of Husker Du

Because of the break-up of Mould's band in the 1980s, he needed a job. He somehow landed a gig at WCW which competed against Vince McMahon's WWF. At the time, WCW was trying to steal wrestlers from McMahon, who was still into hiding the choreography of pro wrestling, and choosing to emphasize the good vs. evil fight based on nationality and politics (i.e. the Iron Shiek, the Russian Bear, etc.) At WCW Mould and a couple other writers changed things up by developing narratives. They took a cue from soap operas. They ditched the politics and started long running stories to get the audience hooked. WCW shot up in popularity, started winning over WWF. This was a good show business formula. Even worse, the fact that pro wrestling let down its guard and didn't care that it was now openly fake didn't do anything to diminish its popularity. Sure some fans moved on to martial arts fighting, but pro restling grew much bigger in popularity.

The pro wrestling writers of the 90s showed that the product matters much less than the story for a mass audience. There are housewives on my facebook page opining about how the Patriots cheat. The soap opera really really sells. The NFL is gambling that it can retain the hardcore fans who have nowhere else to go (unless someone starts a bloodthirsty football league where players bludgeon each other) and so it needs to add viewers with soap operas, viewers who would not otherwise watch.

Bob Mould and the writers that came in with him showed that this thinking worked with wrestling. I think it will also work with the NFL. The NFL is not going to lose fans because we are coddling players due to concussion protocols. It will only add fans for being safer. But you still need to gin up people's resentments. And that's what the soap opera style is all about.

Your recollection of Mould's career and the recent history of the wrestling business aren't very accurate.

LJRomanoff said:

Your recollection of Mould's career and the recent history of the wrestling business aren't very accurate.

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I got it from Mould's book. I wasn't there.

upstater1 said:

I got it from Mould's book. I wasn't there.

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I understand the larger point you're trying to make, but Mould hardly "needed a job" after Husker Du as his next band had far more commercial success and he released several well selling solo albums. His wrestling job was more of a hobby. And it was Vince McMahon who admitted publicly in court that wrestling was fake. He exposed the business long before WCW existed.

That said, I understand your frustration that there are now - in part thanks to social media - a vast population of people happily repeating a false narrative about the Patriots because they assume their facts are correct without ever looking into anything beyond the most superficial headlines.

LJRomanoff said:

I understand the larger point you're trying to make, but Mould hardly "needed a job" after Husker Du as his next band had far more commercial success and he released several well selling solo albums. His wrestling job was more of a hobby. And it was Vince McMahon who admitted publicly in court that wrestling was fake. He exposed the business long before WCW existed.

That said, I understand your frustration that there are now - in part thanks to social media - a vast population of people happily repeating a false narrative about the Patriots because they assume their facts are correct without ever looking into anything beyond the most superficial headlines.

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Well, I can only say that he made it seem as though he was quitting music, and writing for wrestling was a place he landed because he had friends in DC who were connected to it. But the part about the narrative is what he says changed right about 1990. I did go to wrestling in the 70s, and I seem to remember it the way he did. You hated the Sheik because he was Iranian. George Steele was an animal. The Russian Bear, etc. But there was no story at all that I can recall. They kind of just walked in and did their thing. The hammer and sickle was enough to get you going.

Bob Mould you say... I blame Sugar - which led to the over use of fluoride in the US water supply system - which led to http://www.naturalnews.com/030819_fluoride_brain_damage.html

appropos of nothing.

Copper Blue is my favourite Bob Mould album (Yes I know its Sugar)