Experience Not Needed, or Writers Have As Much a Right to Opinions on Wrestling As the Wrestlers

Really?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

The worst thing any one person can levy upon a writer on a certain subject is that they have no credibility to write about it because they've never done it. It's heard every once in awhile when an athlete calls out a journalist who calls him or her out for a poor performance. It's never not annoying. That being said, it's kinda rare in legitimate sport that card is played, even if relationships between the media and athletes can be icy at best at times. Wrestlers, though? It almost seems like they use that argument as a crutch. Every time a fan or an outsider tries to make a criticism about the wrestling industry within earshot of a wrestler, booker or insider, there's more than a good chance that some snarky reply will follow.

The latest example comes from Austin Aries. Apparently, some folks took issue with the finish of his match with Mark Haskins on the latest episode of Impact, calling the missed shooting star press Haskins did a botch. Having just watched it, I didn't see a botch, per se. Then again, my definition of what a botch is far different than some other people's. If he didn't land it clean, who cares? It's part of the match. My only concern is whether he got hurt or not on the move, which of course, I hope he didn't. Besides, botches only matter when they're mishandled. I keep bringing up the example of Sin Cara's first WWE match as a "bad" botch. But shit happens.

Anyway, Aries must've heard some rumblings or read the Twitters, because he came back with this blanket response:

Dear "smart" fans: I hate the term "botch". It's overused. Usually by ones who'd "botch" simply tying the boots of us who actually do this.

Yep, that's a full on implication that fans shouldn't comment on the performance of wrestlers because we can't lace their boots. This implication that fans or writers can't point out wrestler's flaws is so haughty, but at the same time it's nothing new. Its lack of newness was tiring to at least one writer on the web, With Leather's own Brandon Stroud, who fired back with this:

Dear Austin Aries: As a writer, I hate people who use quotation marks to be condescending. Stop writing and we'll call it even.

I thought this was a great response, and an accurate one. No one should mistake Twitter for what it really is, a microblogging site. It involves written-word opinions for everyone to look at and critique. So when someone who's an actual writer, an actual PAID writer, has writing critiques, one would think that Aries would take his own advice and submit, right? Well...:

And actually, what you call being a "writer" I call being an "uninformed opinionist".

...

No, seriously, this to me proves a few things.

1. Aries doesn't read B, because if he did, he'd know that he is FAR from uninformed.
2. Aries doesn't find writing to be on the same level of respect as wrestling.
3. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Seriously, while I feel that Twitter is great and awesome and a revolutionarily fun time waster at times, dust-ups like this often times reinforce that some people just ought not to use it. We all know the trolls and the uninformed fans who think that their terrible opinions should matter are in that group, but that's expected. When it's Aries lashing out at an intelligent writer who often times makes great points like he's one of the trolls, it's disappointing. It's the reason why disconnects exist between the celebrities and the fans, because the fans are often not treated like intellectual equals when they prove they're worthy of that treatment because they're "unwashed" or because they've never taken a bump or acted a scene or whatever.

Now, A Double is my favorite wrestler, or at least one of my favorite wrestlers right now (luv u, Danielson). This flap doesn't change my opinion of him as a performer, but at the same time, fandom should never be blind. I don't even know why I have to preface this, but the fact that he's blocked people over this is a sad state at the skins of some pro wrestlers. It's insane. I don't even know what this accomplishes to tell the truth, except that the people we like to watch in the ring maybe shouldn't be put on a pedestal for their opinions out of it.