by Edgar Suarez Lopez

Created on: November 26, 2009

Now more than ever, we must be aware of the difference between sport and entertainment, in order to properly enjoy and understand professional wrestling.

Vince McMahon, chairman of the WWE, the largest pro-wrestling company existing today, once labeled the product that televised wrestling shows are as "sports entertainment", what we know as pro-wrestling is a combination of both, even though, each one of these two features have had different levels of importance, up to the 70's, wrestling was a fine sport, a "manly" sport, which was never considered fake in any sense, and the base of the wrestling shows back then, was the matches, and the quality of these, of course storylines were still a major factor in the shows, but these were restricted to championship chases, or pure hatred between two competitors.

Today, things have changed, and to get to where we are, pro wrestling has undergone a radical change, now, entertainment is the key element of the televised wrestling shows, the storylines are far more complex and original, betraying partners, cultural differences between wrestlers from different countries etc. A single wrestler's persona, and the character portrayed to fans has become far more important, character's personalities are deeper, each wrestler has a distinct personality, while in earlier years it was limited to GOOD VS BAD, now fans can "analyze" a wrestler and therefore come to a conclusion on whether they like or dislike a particular wrestler.

Now that pro-wrestling is a very commercial industry, where a major part of the revenue created by the companies come from selling paraphernalia and other wrestling themed products, especially for children, bags, pencil cases, toy belts etc. In order to achieve this, their target audience, who know is children, must be entertained, for viewers of this age prefer to be entertained over watching a good sport event, it is much simpler.

So the product that wrestling TV shows are have been modified and adapted to fit the new goals the company has set, the "matches" are not as thoroughly planned, and plan to be entertaining rather than a "good, technical, wrestling match" while some fans, "old school fans" dislike this change and feel like this change betrays the essence of what wrestling is. I personally believe, the product is developing and evoluting alongside the changes that society is having.

I still enjoy watching good matches, and like to be entertained by curious storylines and characters.

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