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Sticks & Stones"
September 20, 2006 by Brad McLeod

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I'm here to speak my mind on the state of wrestling. And, I am here to give advice to you, the fans.Well, actually, I am just going to spout my opinion, I don't care if you want to take the advice or not.

This time around I am going to be negative towards the "You f**ed up!" chant. Personally, I hate that chant, for what it is currently used for.

We constantly use that chant for when the wrestlers miss a move, or slip. That is totally unfair. Sadly, wrestling is the only place we hear this chant. It doesn't break out at ice skating, when Elvis Stoiko (sp") misses the triple axle. It didn't break out when Joe Theisman got his leg broken.

It only comes out in wrestling.

People tend to forget that wrestlers are people, as well. They are just as prone as slipping on a rope, or tripping over their own feet as you and I are. Because wrestlers are kept so distant from the fans, with the fear of "marks", they keep a "superhuman" quality. That quality keeps the fans at such a distance that they think that the wrestlers can't screw up. And, when they do, it a joke to be pointed out.

Wrestlers work hard just about every day, and what they do is very tiring. I remember a famous one when Kane slipped off the top rope, or recently when John Cena and Edge took a spill. Classic "you f**ed up" moments. I think that is barbaric, and callous.

Next time you drop your books in the hallway, or screw up a math question on the board, how would you feel if the class broke out with a "you f**ed up" chant" Or, if you slipped in the workplace"

What I am getting at, is that feelings could get hurt, and wrestlers feel just as shitty as you do when embarrassed.

Am I saying that the chant shouldn't be used" No. I think it should be used in the context of wrestling. Actually, I blame the semi-death of kayfabe for this thing.

Back in the day, when kayfabe was alive and well, if a wrestler screwed up, and took an extra hard bump, there was more drama in the match. If the heel took the power-bomb on the top of the head, then we felt good for the face. If the face landed on his... face, then the drama of "he can never come back from that" made the match more... dramatic

With the absence of kayfabe, now we just berate the wrestlers for being human.

I believe that the chant can still be used, in kayfabe. If, say, Edge is losing a match, and Lita tries to swing a chair at the face, only to accidentally hit Edge, then THAT is a perfect "you f**ed up" moment, to keep in the spirit of wrestling.

by Brad McLeod..

Jesse Lee wrote:
First off, I believe the chant helped the fans in ECW relate to the wrestlers. ECW was all about letting the fans express themselves and if they wanted to call out a wrestler's botch, then let them. In WWF and WCW, they would hide fan reactions, pretend they weren't saying anything, call cheers boos and vice-versa. Basically, look at John Cena's fan reactions today and that's what you got in WWF and WCW. In ECW, they decided to let the fans be as much part of the show as the wrestlers themselves were. No one ever made that chant (or at least, made it so famous) until ECW came around. ECW had to die, get a dvd made, and allow the newer fans (especially on the west coast) to watch and learn about how the crowd was a big part of ECW.

As for kayfabe, if were to seriously start doing that again, then we would have to expect a lot more from the wrestlers. Right now, they're (mostly) only in character at the show or in the ring. During the kayfabe era, you'd have to BE and LIVE your gimmick. Face travels with face, heels travel with heels, constant injury angles (and having to play off the injury in public.) I think that's a lot less fair to their humanity than us telling them that they screwed up a move. There were a lot of drug addictions and early deaths during the kayfabe era(as there are now, but for different reasons) simply due to the fact that not everyone could stay in character about 24/7.

Today, Edge can be a prick in the ring, but when you see him in a restaurant, he's a cool guy. Abyss is a monster in TNA and rarely talks, but at home, he can be just as well-educated as a high school teacher. If we were to kayfabe today, Edge would still a prick in the restaurant and Abyss wouldn't be able to speak to his family... EVER (exaggerating, but you get the message.) As for the "you f---ed up" chant... it's a little fun and if wrestlers get embarrassed or get their feelings hurt then, well... oh well, don't get into the business.

Bertrand Van de Casteele (Belgium) wrote:
I agree partially with you, in that sense that the now infamous "you f*cked up" chants are beeing used too often, even when it's not appropriate to do so...

But, to speculate that we should ban the chant whenever a wrestler "f*cks up" (no pun intended....well, just a little bit) is going too far.

After all, we pay to see a show. And when we pay a high amount for that show and the "f*ckups" become too evident, we show our discontent in that manner.

To give you an example :

The match at Sumerslam between Sabu and The Big Show for the ECW Championship was a botched match, no matter how you look at it. Sabu's mistakes where laughable at some point, and they deserved those chants the full 100%. Even I, in the comfort of my chair, was laughing out loud, and was amused by those chants. U could even see on Big Show's face he was thinking the same thing about his opponent. Agreed, they are only human, but that match was of pitiful quality, just because of those mistakes.

In your article you said that wrestlers are only human beings, with feelings. I don't think they actually care that much what the fans are chanting, let alone those specific ones. I think they just have some kind of switch in their heads that just turns off any real-life emotion during a match. How could they not have" They need to be 100% focused on the match itself (think Kurt Angle). That is the main reason I think we use those chants...we have come to expect nothing less than 100% commitment from the wrestlers in a match, and botching a couple of moves (be it from simple falling of ropes or the aforementioned Summerslam match), seriously hurts our perception of their commitment.

Of course we all know they are humans with flaws, and we couldn't even begin to imagine to do those moves ourselves, but in the end, we pay to see them in action, and when they are failing to deliver the promised "goods", the simplest thing to do is to raise a certain chant about their mistakes.

Is it right to do so" Not entirely in some cases...

Is it wrong to do so" No, certainly not for the wrestlers themselves...

B. Mcleod wrote:
I wasn't talking about letting Kayfabe spill over into real life. Jesus, why does every one have to make wrestling a 24 hour a day thing" Next time you're at a play, and someone messes up a line, chant "you f**ked up" at them. Or, next time a baseball player misses, chant it. You brought up very selective choices in your Kayfabe mentioning. I didn't say they bring back the whole Kayfabe thing. I just said to use the chant in Kayfabe terms. In fact, I did say that wrestlers are real people. I just brought up the Kayfabe era as an example that people weren't as "smart" as they are today, and when an accident happened, the match was better for it, as opposed to making it a reason for ridicule. How about we go to your work, and every time you make a mistake, we start embarassing you" Is it really that hard to ask for a little compassion"

wrote:

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