>American-born Nikita Koloff legally changes his name, learns Russian from scratch, and stays in-character as a non-English-speaking Russian for almost an entire decade, just to maintain kayfabe
>Mr. Wrestling stays in-character despite breaking his back in a plane crash, then wrestles two weeks later so that people won't find out he's friends with a heel in real life, just to maintain kayfabe
>CM Punk constantly pisses on kayfabe's grave, "breaks the fourth wall xD", and makes a mockery out of wrestling itself just to pander to le smarks
What went wrong?
>>1769647
smarks and gaytch
You got older but didn't grow up.
globalisation happened, kayfabe became laughable. read a book
>>1770282
People knew that wrestling was fake forty years ago. Al Snow got jeered at by his folks (who were not wrestling fans, but knew it wasn't real) when he decided to become a wrestler. Real or fake doesn't mean shit, kayfabe is about suspension of disbelief.
>Game of Thrones is fake, but it upholds its own kayfabe. There's no sanctioned John Snow twitter account talking about his good friend Ramsay Bolton.
>Marvel movies are fake, but they uphold their own kayfabe. The characters don't complain about getting held back by the script.
WCW's ratings tanked because they started writing for insiders. TNA had the same issue. WWE has ditched kayfabe and - wow, record ratings!
>>1770306
>WCW's ratings tanked because they started writing for insiders.
lol maybe that's what that hack Vic Venom believed he was doing, but in practice, not really
>>1770306
not true, vince's stuff was good and levelled the ratings until he got cucked
>>1770329
>levelled the ratings
They certainly did!
>>1770329
>vince's
For obvious reasons, Vince Russo is not "Vince" when it comes to wrestling. He's not even the best Russo in the business, just the best-known.
To be fair, it was always pretty obvious that Triple H and CM Punk weren't their real names. The fact wrestlers fight under stage names doesn't automatically mean wrestling is fake, but the wink wink stuff around that time was garbage.
I like how this has more replies on woo
>>1770527
But Triple H's kayfabe real name is Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and here's this motherfucker calling him Paul. It's like if Leonardo DiCaprio stopped halfway through The Revenant, winked at the camera, and said, "By the way, my name's not Hugh, it's Leonardo, and he's Tom!" It's insulting, yanks you out of the experience, and goes against literally everything else you're trying to achieve.
>>1770533
I didn't post it there so I'm pretty flattered.