By Ryan McGaha

Watching Hulk Hogan slam Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III is one of my earliest memories of being a wrestling fan. I was only three years old. There is not much more I remembered from WrestleMania III from seeing it live as a three year old kid. Of course I do remember it now, as I have watched it at least a dozen times on the WWE Network. Anyways, from that point on I was a wrestling fan.

 

Photo Courtesy of WWE
Everything about it to me was real, it was larger than life, and it was the most amazing thing I had ever laid my young eyes on. I had the action figures, the toy ring, the fake foam belt, and I ate an entirely too large amount of those ice cream bars. On the living room floor, my Dad was Andre the Giant and I was Hulk Hogan. The couch would serve as the top rope and suddenly I was The Macho Man Randy Savage dropping the elbow on the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase.  I even had the toy snake in the little green bag, I would grab that bag and I would be Jake the Snake Roberts sliding Damien out of the bag onto my Dad, and my Dad sold every bit of it.

I was the typical child wrestling fan. I cheered all the good guys, and I vehemently booed all the bad guys. My heart would race a thousand beats a minute when the Ultimate Warrior ran to the ring and shook the ropes like the mad man he was. I felt like I had accomplished an important life goal every time I screamed as loud as I could for Hulk Hogan to get up, and then he did, and he would go through his Hulking Up routine. I felt like in some way I was the final straw, that final bit of power he needed to kick out and come back. I stood frozen in amazement every time Jake the Snake would deliver a chilling promo where he would drop the level of his voice nearly to a whisper as he made a poetic point that would put the fear of God into his opponent. I jumped up and down and pumped my fists in the air every time the Rockers came running down to the ring for a tag team match.

I wanted to reach through the TV and squeeze the life out of Sgt. Slaughter when he went to side with the Iron Sheik and Iraq. How could our American Hero turn his back on us like that!?


Photo Courtesy of WWE


I was scared to sleep for a week after the first time I saw the Undertaker and that stare of death that he had. I have all these great memories of wrestling when I was a kid. The memories did not stop there, and new ones are being added every day.

As that young kid so deeply in love with the World Wrestling Federation, and I liked WCW as well, I guess at some point my Dad decided it was time to smarten me up. I can not remember the exact year, event, or even the match. All I remember was that it involved Mr. Perfect. He did one of his trademark spots where his opponent would slingshot him into the post. What made Curt Hennig above and beyond most wrestlers was that he did not go for the turnbuckle pad, no, when his opponent would slingshot him into the corner, he went high and over the turnbuckle pad and would crash down on to the actual steel post behind it. In my mind Mr. Perfect had just been knocked out.

Whatever the match or event, my Dad and I were watching it on VHS, I remember this because my Dad took the opportunity to rewind the match, and this is where he decided to smarten me up to the secret. He rewound the match a few seconds, then with our state of the art VCR player, he advanced the slingshot post spot of Mr. Perfect frame by frame so I could see Curt put up his hand so that instead of hitting the post, his head actually hit his hand. This revelation was absolutely mind blowing to me. 

Photo Courtesy of WWE


I was still skeptical of what my Dad was trying to sell me at that point. The next few years after that, I was mostly able to watch wrestling the same, but I started to notice more and more spots of guys protecting themselves in their spots. I would still refuse to believe that what I loved so much was not on the up and up. Then two important things happened that moved me even closer to being mostly smartened up to the business.
 

The first thing was one of the major TV networks ran the piece on the secrets of Pro Wrestling. It was some sort of network TV special where they gave away all the in ring secrets they possibly could. Because of what my Dad showed me years earlier, and the things I had been seeing after that, this network special was not as damaging to me as it was to some other wrestling fans whom had yet to be smartened up at all. The other big piece that was the final straw, or the final piece of the puzzle maybe, that took me from being a mark to a smart mark was the Beyond the Mat documentary. At the time this was released I was pretty much in full-blown smart mark mode, but as I said, it was just the final piece of the puzzle.

Beyond the Mat dropped in the fall of 1999. Not long after this I discovered the online dirt sheets. I spent the next 14 years in full-blown smart mark mode. I would begin the constant questioning of why the creative minds were making the decisions that they were making. It really started heavy in 2001 when Vince bought WCW. I think that whole invasion angle was a pretty easy jumping off point for being a smart mark and questioning every single decision made. Why didn’t they bring nWo in right away? Where was Goldberg? Give us Goldberg vs. Austin now! We want Sting vs. Undertaker!!!

I found a group of friends that were right along the same mindset as myself and it became even easier to question everything about wrestling. It grew to be more than just the WWE. Total Nonstop Action was up and coming and we thought we knew better than their bookers. We would sit around and discuss shows, offer alternate angles, read the dirt sheets, and exchange rumors and spoilers constantly. It quickly snowballed into a cycle that I am sure any wrestling fan reading this more than likely fell into, and maybe are still in today. We would record the shows on DVR and then fast forward through most of it because we already knew what was going to happen because of either spoilers or rumors, and creative was not doing what we thought they should be doing so we were too good to watch what they put out for us. Wrestling, was no longer fun to watch.

This feeling would preside over my wrestling fandom for years. It was not until 2012 when I met G.K. on the indy scene that that feeling would slowly go away. G.K., through a couple trips to Louisville and back to Cincinnati, gave me a full blown education into the business. He really taught me a lot about the hard work and dedication that workers put, not only into the business overall, but also into their own individual characters. This information from G.K. immediately brought back a huge amount of respect from myself towards the business. I began to pick his brain via messages. Anything he was willing to tell me, I asked. Anytime I got a chance to go to a show with him, I did. I would offer to drive, and I’d resume picking his brain for any amount of info that I could.

In 2014 during a random conversation I finally got around to asking the question that fully brought me back into the fold as a fan. I asked him, “How do you know so much about the business and not let it affect how you watch the business?” G.K. replied, “I watch it like I’m a kid. I try to watch it with the same eyes that my little girl does. I avoid spoilers and rumors, and I try to enjoy it as if I was a kid.” There it was, dropped on me like a bombshell. Watch it like a kid. I immediately went home and fired up the WWE Network and began binge watching everything from my childhood. I figured if I was going to try to watch the new product like I was a kid, I should try and get myself back into that mindset of when I was a kid. What better way to do that than by watching all those great shows from when I was little.

           
I stopped reading any spoilers at all, and I avoided rumors at all costs. Immediately watching the current WWE product was better by leaps and bounds. When a new star would return, I was surprised and could freak out like an excited child again. When Batista returned at a Monday Night Raw in Dayton, Ohio in early 2014, I was at the show with my four year old son. He had no clue who Batista was. When Batista came out, the crowd went nuts, I went nuts, and so my son was smiling ear to ear screaming his head off with his dad. Because I had avoided the rumors, announcements, and spoilers for that night, my son and I have a memory we will remember for a long time. I was hooked all over again with watching Wrestling this way.

The last four years have been amazing as a wrestling fan. I mostly stick to watching WWE. I have tried to stick with TNA/GFW/Impact Wrestling, but that has proven to be difficult. Keeping up with WWE usually consumes up most of my free TV time. Occasionally I will get to check out some Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro, and some Lucha Underground. I rarely ever question any booking/creative decisions, I don’t get all huffy puffy when the stars in a match miss a move or mistime a spot, and I don’t heckle a star when they get tripped up on a microphone. I just take everything I’m given for what it is. I take it at face value, without question, and I watch it like I am a young child. Especially when it comes to WWE, the target audience for them is younger pre-teen children. So I try to put myself in that mindset and now being a wrestling fan is without a doubt 200% more enjoyable this way.

I hope that all the smart marks that read this might be inspired to try this strategy. I want you to know that your booing of baby faces, your cheering of heels, your playing with beach balls during matches, your “this is awful” chants, your chants of boring, your chants of “you can’t wrestle,” and all of the other noticeable things you do to try to disrupt shows, change booking decisions, and influence other audience members, adds nothing to the shows in which your actions take place. You actually ruin most shows in which you are the majority of the audience. The actual marks have no clue why you are doing what you are doing. 

Photo Courtesy of WWE



The people like myself just get frustrated with you and wish that you would just watch from home. I will get more into a show with genuine marks, marking out, when something amazing actually happens, than when there is a show like the post-WrestleMania Raw where you are 90% of the audience. Stop trying to get yourself over. Stop trying to act like you know better than the booking/creative team. Stop trying to be cool, you’re not too sweet, you’re not one of the bad guys. Try being like me… I used to be a smart-mark.


Ryan McGaha is a staff writer and analyst for Impact Sports Cincinnati and can be followed on Twitter