Okay. I'm guessing right about now a lot of you are wondering
why the hell a video about wrestling is showing up in your subscription feed. And I get it, wrestling is totally not for everybody. But it's also April 1st, which means your timeline
is probably filled with April Fool's Day videos, and rather than add another to the pile, I thought I'd take
this opportunity and do something a little different, and talk about a form of entertainment I've loved
for basically my entire life. And if you hate professional wrestling, if you're wondering why I would debase myself covering
such a ridiculous subject clearly aimed at children, ...well first off, I have some bad news for you about
the rest of this channel, and second, you are actually the person I'm making
this video for. My goal here isn't to turn you into a wrestling fan, just to
try and help you understand why so many people are. And understanding the world around us is a good thing,
right? Even the parts of it that seem really dumb and insane,
right? ...right. Okay, elephant in the room; wrestling is fake. And no, not even in the way Game of Thrones is fake, professional wrestling is a pretend sport masquerading
as a real one. These two women are not actually fighting, these two men do not actually hate each other, and this is not an actual evil voodoo priest named
Papa Shango, it's Charles Wright, who's also played the role of a salty martial artist
and a jovial pimp. And he, alongside an entire industry of his fellow
wrestlers, all work together as a highly-choreographed physical
theater, the goal of which is to convince the audience that
what they are seeing is an actual competitive event. This is the sticking point with a lot of people and
wrestling; the idea that it's fake and not a legitimate sport,
thus devaluing it as a piece of entertainment. But to me, wrestling isn't devalued by the fact that
it's fake, rather, it's fascinating because of it. And through this, in a very strange way that I'm going to
explain by the end of this video, can also be more real than virtually anything else
on television. The revelation that wrestling is fake is not a new one,
not by a long shot. It was in 1938 that North American newspapers
stopped reporting the results of pro wrestling, because at that point journalists had become wise
to the idea that the results of these matches were predetermined. Up until this point, wrestling had mainly been a sideshow
at carnivals, but that changed when wrestling bookers learned
two things. The first was that the sport was a lot more profitable
for them if they could decide the outcome, but second, it was also a lot more entertaining for
the audience, as rather than the matches being just a pure contest of
strength and skill, where the winner could have all the potential charisma
and charm of a bag of wet chalk, they could instead engage the crowd with heroes and
villains and create rivalries and storylines around them, which would keep the audience coming back week
after week. This would also skyrocket wrestling's popularity in
the early days of television, turning what had started as a carny show into a
national obsession, which also meant that now, maintaining the illusion that
wrestling was real was more critical than ever. And this is what led to the implementation of "Kayfabe." Kayfabe was originally a codeword wrestlers used to signal to each other that there were fans or outsiders
nearby, and so the illusion of wrestling would need to be
maintained. But in a much broader sense, it's a term used to refer to
the portrayal of staged events as real, and specifically, of wrestling as a legitimate contest, and wrestling personas as actual people and
real competitive athletes, meaning that wrestlers were expected to play their
fictional wrestling personas whenever they were out in public. And so heroic wrestlers, known as "Faces," were
expected to be friendly and kind to their fans, while villainous wrestlers, known as "Heels," were
instructed to be unpleasant and antagonistic. And above all else, faces and heels were never, ever
to be seen together in public, as doing so would give way that the rivalry between
the two was fabricated, thus exposing his secret reality of the business. The illusion of kayfabe was fiercely maintained
even well into the 90s. It was what allowed fans to let themselves believe that
wrestling was real, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. As a wrestling fan, people were always eager to tell you
that it was fake, but it was always easy to dismiss because it always
came from people that disliked wrestling. But then, one fateful night on May 19th 1996, an incident would occur that would destroy the illusion
of wrestling. And it was an incident known as "The Curtain Call." The Curtain Call took place right in the center of
Madison Square Garden, and it involved a group of four wrestlers who shared an
off-camera friendship, and were known backstage as "The Kliq:" Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, Shawn Michaels, and
Paul Levesque. This was the last night Hall and Nash would be
performing under the banner of WWF, and the following day would be jumping ship to
rival company WCW. Michaels and Nash were bitter rivals in WWF's storyline
at this point, and in the final match of the night, Michaels was set to
defeat Nash in a steel cage match. But what wasn't part of the script was what came
after the match's conclusion, when the cameras stopped rolling, when Michaels straddled his unconscious opponent,
and revived him with a Snow White-esque kiss. Fans looked on, bewildered and stunned. And then to add to the confusion, Hall and Levesque
both came to the ring, and the four friends celebrated an emotional farewell. The problem, though, was that this was not part of the
WWF canon storyline. Not only did these four wrestlers not have an on-camera
friendship, they were meant to actively despise one another, with Hall and Michaels both being beloved faces,
and Nash and Levesque loathed heels. But if that was true, then why were they all in the ring
hugging and celebrating? Were these guys... actually friends? Oh my God! The incident never aired on national television,
but it didn't matter. The advancement of home camcorder technology,
alongside the rise of the internet, meant that the footage was captured by fans and free to
rampage across the world wide web. And the result was that the illusion of kayfabe that professional wrestling had shrouded itself in
for so many years was left tattered and broken, with wrestling audiences around the world faced with
the now-undeniable fact that wrestling was fake, and underneath the facade lay a separate reality. A reality that lay just below the surface, tantalizingly
out of sight. This is what would lead to the modern era of
pro wrestling. To wrestling fans now, the "secret" that wrestling is
scripted is not a secret. Instead, what we have now is a form of entertainment
that exists in two separate realities; the fictional world of kayfabe, and the actual, real-life
business and politics behind it. Which leaves us with the question: If wrestling is fake, and that knowledge is widely known,
then what then is the appeal of it? If someone wants to watch a genuine contest of
skill and strength, then why not just go watch UFC? And the answer to that lies in the fundamental
difference between the two; that this is a competition, and this is a story. Wrestling, like so many other forms of fiction, is about
telling stories. I want you to look at these clips, and forget for a
moment that you're watching wrestling. Just try and imagine your own body performing these
maneuvers. Think about the years of training it would take to be able
to move like this, and about the timing and trust you'd need to have
in another person to execute these sequences, and ask yourself, what is all that effort for? What is actually being achieved here? And the answer is that they're building a narrative
through the suspension of disbelief. The suspension of disbelief is the simultaneous belief
in two inconsistent things. Anyone who watches The Matrix believes both that we
are watching a fight between Neo and Morpheus, but is aware that we're actually watching Keanu Reeves
and Laurence Fishburne perform a choreographed sequence of actions
being shot on a film set. And it's the filmmaker's job to make it as easy on the
audience as possible to suppress that second idea, which is why solid acting, writing, and editing
is so important, because a discrepancy in any particular one could break
the audience's immersion, destroying our investment in the story. But immersion is also something that's created in very
different ways in different forms of art. Take the far simpler medium of "Rakugo." Rakugo is a minimalist form of Japanese theatre
involving a single actor kneeling onstage, whose only props are a fan and a piece of cloth. And with this ultra-minimalist setup, they play out entire
stories, even embodying multiple characters, using subtle gesturing and posing, along with tonal
inflection, to convey different people. And so the immersion, the suspension of disbelief, is created purely through the physical performance
of the actor. A skilled rakugoka can make it feel like an actual story
with a full cast of characters is playing out in front of us, despite the fact we can very clearly see it's just
one person kneeling onstage. Wrestling works the exact same way. Just like film, just like rakugo, what the performers are ultimately trying to do
is make us believe that what we're seeing is real. And not only just in the staged violence, but also
by embodying these characters and their emotions. One of the things I love about Kanako Urai, real name
to former NXT Women's Champion Asuka, is that from the moment she steps out into an arena, everything from her wardrobe, to the way she walks,
to how she plays with the camera, embodies this fascinating fictional character. A bizarre, violent person who takes distinct glee
in breaking her opponents apart. And because of how good Urai is at conveying
this character, both through her wrestling and the subtlety
of her actions, you don't see the actual performance behind it. You just see Asuka, The Empress of Tomorrow. This is something that all great wrestlers do. The embodiment of a fictional persona, a character. And so all a wrestling match is is what happens when two of these fictional characters
meet at particular points in their lives, and the story that unfolds through that. Granted, that might sound a little weighty, so to show this, I'd like to use an example from a match
from WrestleMania VIII, in the form of "Rowdy" Roddy Piper versus
Bret "The Hitman" Hart. Piper was the defending Intercontinental Champion,
a fan favorite, and the far more experienced of the two, while Hart was the rising new star of the company. And just watch the story that plays out between these
two characters. From the outset, Piper is consistently outwrestled
by Hart, having each throw and hold countered and turned back
on him, to the point that it's obvious that he cannot beat Hart
in a technical wrestling match. At which point, Piper changes tactics, pretending to
show respect to Hart to lower his guard, before blindsiding him with a brutal closed fist attack, and begins to decimate his younger opponent with
a string of vicious, illegal assaults, until finally Hart, now bloody and battered, rallies, gaining a read on his opponent once again and
countering everything Piper can throw at him, until finally Piper, left with no other option, knocks the
referee unconscious and grabs hold of the ring bell, and is about to use it to put his younger opponent away
once and for all. But then there's just this beautiful little moment
where Piper just... stops, and looks at the sea of people surrounding him, and is left awash in a chorus of boos, the fans disgusted
by his actions. He used to be the hero in these situations. These used to be his fans. And in this moment of realization, he throws away
the bell, and the crowd explodes at this subtle act of redemption, before finally Piper is outdone one last time, accepts his defeat with grace, passing both the torch
and his title to the newer generation. There is so much to this match. It's basically an entire fallen hero/villain redemption
story arc told in 16 minutes without any dialogue, purely conveyed through the physical storytelling
of both wrestlers. And I think that's kind of incredible. From here, Piper's career would start to fade, and Bret, after years of success, would eventually find
himself in a match where the roles were reversed, where now he was the veteran the crowd had
turned against, as he faced off against the new rising star of the
company; "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. This is what professional wrestling is, and while it's
not always good or even socially acceptable, when it's at its best, it can be exciting, to funny,
to even occasionally genuinely heartbreaking. And the knowledge that these events are scripted,
for me, doesn't take anything away from the emotional impact
they have, in the same way that knowing Yusuke vs. Toguro is just
a bunch of cels being photographed in rapid succession doesn't take away from the emotional impact of that. Okay, everything we just talked about, that's all
the kayfabe side of wrestling. The fictional performance created by the wrestlers
and writing staff. But as we mentioned earlier, there is another side
to wrestling, and that's the actual reality behind it. When you begin to look into the industry of pro wrestling
for long enough, a strange thing starts to happen, and that is that the line between what's real and
what isn't gradually begins to blur, and you begin to see moments when the fictional world
of kayfabe and the actual reality of the business begin to bleed into one another, and identifying the point where one starts and the other
ends becomes nearly impossible And to show this, we need to go back to the
Curtain Call. The Curtain Call and its shattering of kayfabe was seen
by many of the wrestlers and staff within the WWF as an appalling attack on wrestling. And so, there had to be punishment. Someone had to pay the price for this transgression. It couldn't be either Scott Hall or Kevin Nash, as they had
both already left the company, and it couldn't be Shawn Michaels, because he
at the time was the current WWF Champion, and already a problem in many other areas. And so the entirety of the blame fell on Paul Levesque, an upper-mid card wrestler with a lot of potential,
who seemed bound for greatness. And as punishment, his entire career was derailed and
he found himself at the bottom of the card once again, being forced to endure a string of humiliating losses
in matches that showed him as weak and ineffective, with other wrestlers shrugging off his attacks
and quickly and easily defeating him. Writing like this is devastating to a wrestler's career. It destroys the fictional credibility a wrestling persona
has with the audience, and therefore severely damages their ability to draw
a crowd, and thus earn a living wage. But this was the new reality that Levesque now faced. None of this was part of the actual WWF storyline,
or even mentioned on TV. From the audience's perspective, all that was happening
was Levesque was a wrestler who used to win a lot, and then suddenly stopped. Now, let's take a moment that came four years later. At this point, Levesque had sweat and bled his way
back to the top of the card, and had been reborn as title contender Triple H. And in an interview that was meant to be kayfabe,
that was meant to be scripted, this happened: Levesque - "What, you- you want me to shoot with this
interview? I'm gonna [beep] shoot with it. "It's about four years ago, Madison Square Garden.
I walked to the ring to say goodbye to my friends. "Kevin Nash, Scott Hall Shawn Michaels... "Who got punished for that, J.R.? "Well, you know what? That makes me sick in
my stomach. "Every time I look at you guys, it makes me sick to think
what you did to me, holding me back. "You guys talk about being "students of the game." "I am the f[beep] game, J.R.! "There is nobody that eats, sleeps, or breathes
this business more than me!" The thing to note here is that he is referring to events
that never took place in the fictional WWF storyline. He's referring to things that really happened. And so ask yourself; who is actually speaking here? Is it the fictional wrestling persona Triple H, or is it the actual human being behind the persona,
Paul Levesque, the person who had to actually endure the ire of
WWF management for years, and nearly saw his career ruined? And the answer is that it's both. It's both Triple H and Paul Levesque. And the result is that there's an honesty and an anger
that's genuinely captivating, as the reality starts to fuel the fiction. And there are dozens of incidents like this that have
taken place throughout the years of wrestling. The Montreal Screwjob, the forced retirement
and recent return of Daniel Bryan, and possibly most infamously, the CM Punk pipe bomb, in which former wrestler CM Punk took to a mic
and verbally rended the entire WWE, laying waste to the management, his fellow wrestlers,
and even his own fans. Punk - "I'm barely promoted. I don't get to be in movies. "I'm certainly not on any crappy show on the
USA Network. "But the fact that Dwayne is in the main event of
WrestleMania next year and I'm not makes me sick!" [crowd cheering] Punk - "Le- let me get something straight. Those of you
who are cheering me right now? "You are just as big a part of me leaving as
anything else! "You're the ones that buy those programs that my face
isn't on the cover of, "and then at five in the morning at the airport, you try
to shove it in my face "so you can get an autograph and try to sell it on eBay!" This to me is what's so uniquely captivating about
wrestling. Out of all forms of entertainment, in no other is the line
between fiction and reality so delicate and malleable, where the fourth wall is so fragile. And when it does finally give way, it can lead to some of the most intense and oddly
sincere storytelling in any form of entertainment. As fake as wrestling can be, these are the moments
when it becomes shockingly real. These moments show something else also, and that is
that at its heart, wrestling is just a story about people. No matter how theatrical a wrestling persona is,
at its core it's just a person. One as real and flawed as anyone else. And when you start to watch wrestling for long enough, it's the stories of these people that become the main
draw, as you watch them grow, and age, and change. So to conclude this video, I want to talk about one
of these stories. I want to talk about the saga of the Golden☆Lovers. Our story begins in 2008, as two young wrestlers
wage war on one another. The first is Kota Ibushi, a young, supremely talented Japanese wrestler
who seems bound for greatness. And the other is Kenny Omega, a Canadian wrestler who, after seeing tapes of Ibushi's
matches, felt destined to face him. And so he issued an open challenge to Kota,
which Ibushi accepted, and so Omega traveled to Japan, and a showdown took
place that was messy, brutal, and mesmerizing. Ibushi eventually took the victory, but it didn't matter. Over the course of the match, the two wrestlers realized
something. There was a connection here. Both wrestlers believed that wrestling could be more
than just wrestling. It could be a vehicle for comedy, a way to tell stories, hell, it could even be art. And together, the two resolved to change the world
of wrestling. Omega uproots his entire life and moves to Japan
to be closer to Ibushi, and rather than become rivals, they form a tag team,
initially being pitched as the "Golden☆Brothers," but Omega and Ibushi preferred the name the
"Golden☆Lovers." The Golden☆Lovers are on a level few other tag teams
can even approach. There's a kinship and a synchronicity here that fuels
their matches. But what's more, they seem genuinely delighted to be
around each other, both in the ring and outside it, and that chemistry shows in their exceptional teamwork
and performances, with the Japanese audience embracing them
wholeheartedly as they capture multiple tag titles. And by 2011, it feels like their dream is beginning
to come true. The Golden☆Lovers are inseparable, and they are
changing the face of wrestling. But slowly, a gap starts to form between the two. While Kota only needs to rely on his god-given
natural talent, Kenny often struggles, having to work hard to overcome
his own weakness and to keep pace with Ibushi, and he starts to feel outpaced by his genius partner. Kota's genius doesn't go unnoticed, either. He's being given more opportunities as a single wrestler,
and what's more, he's winning. And with each victory, Kenny feels a little more
left behind. And so on August 18th 2012, after three years of partnership, the two face each other, and what follows is one of the most spectacular
matches in history, Kota fighting for his pure love of wrestling, and Kenny desperately battling as to not be left behind
by the person he cares about the most. But it's not enough. He cannot overcome the genius of Ibushi. And afterwards, both wrestlers look devastated, Kenny for the loss, and Kota for having inflicted it
upon him. Over the next two years, the gap between the two would
only continue to widen. Ibushi continues to rise, even going so far as to face the
legendary King of Strong Style, Shinsuke Nakamura. But meanwhile, Kenny struggles without his former
partner, gaining only modest wins, and racking up several
major losses, including one especially crushing defeat at the hands of
Prince Devitt, a member of the villainous "Bullet Club," a vicious faction of American wrestlers who spit in the
face of Japanese pro wrestling, overwhelming opponents with their superior numbers
and brutal tactics. And the experience changes Omega. He can't help feel that now, without Ibushi by his side,
he is alone. But Devitt has an entire army of allies behind him. And so, a realization dawns on him. Maybe with the Bullet Club, he could finally become
strong enough to stand as an equal with Ibushi. And so two weeks later, he emerges as their
newest member. And it works. He wins, and he keeps winning, until the day finally comes when his mentor and leader
of the Bullet Club, AJ Styles, faces Kota for the IWJP Heavyweight Championship. In typical Bullet Club fashion, Kenny was expected to
sabotage Ibushi. But he can't. He holds back for the entire match until its final
moments, when Ibushi scales the turnbuckle and is seconds
from victory, only to turn his head and see Kenny standing on the
ring apron, and the two lock eyes. And Kenny becomes paralyzed between his loyalty for
the Bullet Club and his feelings towards his former partner,
and so, fails to act. But this momentary distraction is just enough time
for Styles to recover, and he counters Ibushi's attack for a crushing comeback
defeat. Afterwards, Omega is visibly shaken, while Ibushi lies devastated, both by the loss and the
betrayal of his former partner. Not long after, Ibushi disappears from the Japanese
wrestling scene, while Omega only continues to grow more ruthless,
vicious, and victorious, and he begins to dominate New Japan, shrouding
himself in the indestructible armor of the Bullet Club, and even deposing Styles as its leader, taking the crown
for himself. This new invincible Kenny Omega even makes it to
the very final of the G1 Climax, the most elite wrestling tournament in the entire world. But his conquest has taken its toll, and he enters
the match battered and exhausted, facing the immovable and dangerous Hirooki Goto, who punishes Omega again and again, constantly
pushing him to the brink of defeat. And as the light of victory begins to fade away,
Omega reaches deep down inside himself, and what he finds is his old partner Ibushi, whose finisher, the "Shining Star Powerbomb," he uses in a final sequence of moves to overcome Goto
and take the win. And so finally, he's done it. He's the best in the world. But without Ibushi by his side, how much does it actually
mean? This inner conflict is only made worse when a year later, Omega suffers a crushing loss in the finals of the same
tournament, and afterwards, backstage, comes face-to-face
with Ibushi for the first time since his betrayal. And Ibushi reaches out to comfort Omega, but Kenny
cannot accept it. Things have gone too far. It's too late. And slowly, the unbreakable armor Omega has
surrounded himself in begins to crack and crumble, and sensing weakness, the other members of the
Bullet Club begin to turn on him, with "The American Nightmare" Cody Rhodes using his
feelings for Ibushi as a weapon against him, culminating in a savage attack on Kota, only to have
Omega furiously defend his former partner. This eventually leads to the Bullet Club turning on Kenny,
destroying him with a vicious assault, only for Ibushi to run to the ring and save his
former partner. And then, in a moment that's been ten years
in the making, the two finally just stand in the ring and face one
another, Ibushi desperate to reform their partnership. But it's just too late. Too much has happened, and the scars run too deep. Omega cannot accept his former partner. Until... After a story ten years in the making, the Golden☆Lovers
are reunited. What's so incredible to me about the saga of the
Golden☆Lovers is that it's a story that could only really occur
in wrestling. One that's about two people who felt a connection
and formed something beautiful, only to later be torn apart by the different directions
life pulled them in, and then finally, years later, to realize what really
mattered. And what's more, identifying what's real here and
what isn't is nearly impossible. Omega was genuinely a young wrestler who was
inspired by a videotape of Ibushi, Ibushi's talent did outshine Omega, and the two were genuinely caught between their love of
competing together and their aspirations as single wrestlers. And as a result, there's a heart and a strife to this story
that's so genuine and real. And I think at its best, that's what wrestling can be. Yes, it's fake, but that doesn't mean it can't be honest, doesn't mean it's stories can't be about real things
that we can all relate to. This is why I'm still a fan, why so many people are,
and why I think at least, that professional wrestling is fascinating. Friends, thank you for joining me today, and particularly,
if you're not a fan of pro wrestling, I want to thank you for sticking around to the end of this
video and giving it a chance. I really hope you got something out of it. I want to shout out the Twitter user @EffingBoring, whose work was a huge inspiration and source for
this video, and who also has covered the story of the
Golden☆Lovers in a far more comprehensive manner than I have here. Link in the description below. Also, huge shout out to the channel Showbuckle, whose videos on New Japan and the Golden☆Lovers
were also a massive source for this video. A massive thank you to my own personal Bullet Club
over on Patreon. This video in particular, I'd like to thank: Captain Piledriver, Harris Bajwa, Cole Davies, Cragi Wasko, Richard Fox, Rachel Martin, Nathalie Neumann, and Thomas Truong. Catch me on the Let's Fight a Boss video game podcast, where we'll be discussing Ready Player One and some
New Japan pro wrestling, or find me on Twitter, @Eyepatchwolf. Friends, take care of yourselves, and I'll see you
next time.
This is the next Wrestling Isn't Wrestling. Fantastic video.
Super Eyepatch Wolf is an amazing Youtuber. Love his anime/manga analysis and they are all very well done
Wow, that was incredibly well done. One of the best videos about wrestling I've seen.
I was scared he was just making an April 1st video. But he used it as a calling card to give us another great video but on the subject of wrestling.
And of course he focused on the Golden Lovers saga ahaha. As he should tbh. Although Showbuckle's video gives a but more context to everything and makes the climax feel more warranted. But if you can get someone to sit through this video, you might be able to convince them on a full Golden Lovers one as well.
It's amazing seeing this type of portrayal of the passion of wrestling. Not unlike Wrestling isn't Wrestling, these videos go a long way to expose what would actually draw people to something that is so... silly and fake sounding. I just have this urge to spread them around if i actually thought most people i'd show this to would gladly see them.
[removed]
plus side to this video. Eyepatch Wolf has a HUGE following on youtube. He just covered the Golden Lovers and this will bring in a lot of new fans to google about them and finding NJPW.
He's an amazing youtuber that really knows how to get across what an anime is trying to achieve. His Redline video is something I recommend everyone to watch. Awesome to see him doing a wrestling vid.
EDIT: Just watched the video. This guy knows how to put over something!
It's a really great video, but the idea that "most" people thought wrestling was real up until the curtain call is a little silly. Most fans knew in the 80's that it was staged entertainment.
This is a really great video. The next time I get the, "you know wrestling is fake, right?" question, I'm going to show someone this video. Of course, they probably won't watch it since it's 30 minutes long, but still.
It's so hard to get people who don't watch wrestling to understand the appeal, and this video does a great job explaining it.