Someone I work with is into wrestling and on our dress down Friday's he will regularly wear wrestling shirts. We don't shy away from it in the workplace. Another girl we work with likes it too, but is a bit more embarrassed to admit it.

Outside of that I can't say I encounter many other fans that aren't my close friends. I mean there was an instance when I was wearing my KO shirt in our town centre and 3 guys sang his theme at me, but that's about it.

Is like a secret society

Wearing a wrestling T-shirt in public is ridiculous unless you're 11 years old or actually at a wrestling event.

There are quite a few people in my workplace and I definitely know a few of them who are wrestling fans. Was working with a few of them the day after Shane returned and we all had a bit of a chat about it.

That said wrestling isn't something I'd openly chat about or admit to watching. Think there's less of a stigma around it than there used to be (since many growing up who are now in that 18-34 age group might well've watched a bit of it) but think there's still a bit of 'it's fake' response from some people as if wrestling fans don't realise it.
Which is an idiotic response frankly but it's hardly going to go away.

And I think any stereotyping of wrestling fans at this point is well out of date (if it ever was accurate). Men, women, children, young and old watch WWE.
And even a quick look at celebrities known to be WWE fans sort of proves that point. The likes of Ronda Rousey, Jon Stewart, Ruth Langsford (she's attended a few shows) and Donald Trump are all WWE fans and I think you'd struggle to argue they're all the same.

I agree though i feel they really should do some research as to why they've lost that many so quickly.

I wonder if Smackdown will sell out before November, I think it will. Great publicity for ICW aswell, if I was them I'd have their roster outside the Hydro with flyers on the night promoting their own show, there's enough fans there to sell out their shows aswell and also introduce them to ICW.

Oh for goodness sake...

This is where we disagree. It's a shirt, who cares what it looks like, has on it or represents. Just wear it.
I mean don't get me wrong, I don't actively wear my 'I'm A Hugger' shirt in public as I live in a dump and might catch something from someone who takes it as an invitation
But others, I feel perfectly comfortable wearing. I'm not ashamed of it. I go to a lot of gigs and always see people there in wrestling shirts. It can act as a good conversation starter in some situations.


This is exactly what I don't want. I don't want Raw/SMACKDOWN hijacked by ICW fans. Rumours have it that's why NXT are rejecting you guys up there.

A lot of the reasons are obvious and probably also to many of those running the company:

3 Hours. I know it's been that way for nearly 4 years now, but it takes a while to bite and people to find something too much of a drag. Over an hour of each broadcast is made up of money spinning adverts and recaps.

DVR usage. They've been around for a while but have become even more the norm since 2010. You can add an average of 500,000 extra recorded viewings to the actual live average of just over 3 million.

Tablet/YouTube generation. Skip to the highlights of matches and cut out the filler in promos, you're left with a maximum of 20-25 minutes of actual 'happenings'. It's easier and far less time consuming to keep up with the product by watching those tidbits online. That's probably more appealing to a number of children and teens. There are only so many times you can watch The Usos or Rusev do their ring entrances before you skip it for a while.

Creative decline since Wrestlemania 30. There has been a noticeable deterioration in creative since the Evolution/Shield feud. You could write an essay on the thrown together narrative and meta booking. Orton destroying Rollins on Raw before their WM 31 match and subsequent victory is a good example of that. I've also lost of the number of times Cena, Ambrose, Reigns, Ziggler and co battled the Authority and/or Wyatt Family.

Failure to create new stars. Cena, Lesnar, Triple H and Undertaker are still the top 4 stars in this company despite pushes given to Reigns and Rollins, in addition to other stop-start pushes. Unfortunately two of them are ageing and part time, the other is stale as hell and the other only makes part time appearances/stands around while his manager sells the feud.

Personally i think quite a few of the wrestling shirts are pretty smart looking, randy ortons legend killer one is one i wear in town occasionally and a few none wwe fans have asked where they can get one.
I wore the mizs shirt "haters love me" at work when i was working for Amazon, no-one batted a eyelid and in the process i discovered quite a few folk there who watch WWE etc

Same here. One guy, every Friday, wears a WWE T Shirt. It was a HHH one this week. I also know of a girl who like it, but she's a closet fan.

I wore my Paige t-shirt that my friend gave to me during SmackDown on Tuesday as a belated birthday gift. At first, I was embarrassed by it because it said 'Scream for me', but the girl I mentioned above gave me confidence to be proud of it.

It is on WWE.com now, so we should be cool talking about it.

Agree with you mate,the whole Shane stuff is just a joke now. We all know we are heading for yet another 3/4 month long authority vs the underdog angle.

Shane will open Raw tomorrow night and Triple H and Stephanie will interrupt, very predicable.

The only thing I am looking forward to is another classic Shane botch on his promo!!

As they are so desperate to make Roman Reigns popular & with the Bullet Club now in the WWE do you think they are gojng re-unite the Shield when Seth Returns

I'm always happy to see Shane on TV but honestly Mania might as well not have happened.
I realise at times continuity is hard to keep - but here they've totally ignored it. I mean he's appeared more since Mania than before it.


I think the Shield may well briefly reunite some point in the next 12-18 months but can't see it being immediately on Rollins's return. If it is, hope WWE do some backstory and don't totally ignore continuity like they have with Shane recently.

Certainly though I wouldn't be surprised if there was some combination of The Shield and Bullet Club members in tag matches at some point soon though.

Haha this little video made me laugh

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...01049150164075

You're right about the 'secret society' aspect to wrestling fandom. It's awesome. I once casually suggested we nickname somebody 'X-Pac' (it kinda made sense even if you didn't watch wrestling) and a few minutes later this girl was like "can I have a word with you?'. Secret wrestling fan. We should have a handshake.

Wrestling fans are and always have been the best thing about wrestling.

I wear wrestling shirts every day, but most are CM Punk/Daniel Bryan ones that are not easily recognisable as wrestling shirts.

I often wear the 'Yes Yes Yes' tee in Edinburgh/Glasgow which I'd imagine leads most people to assume I have completely opposite political beliefs to the ones I actually have, which tickles me a wee bit.

Seibu, don't have a heart attack, I agree. There is something fantastic and giving about wrestling fans.

Some of my favourite moments come from WWE embracing the likes of Connor or cheering when they announce a kid has beaten cancer etc (I mention WWE specifically because it's the only fanbase I've personally witnessed, I'm sure others would do it too).

There's obviously other things but that's the one that stands out personally

Very true about wrestling fans..99% of us are a good bunch.

I also go to watch football from time to time (I support Man City...yes even before we got good ) and even though you get a lot of good people going you get more than a fair few idiots as well. For example when we was at Wembley the other week for the league cup final against Liverpool, I walked in to the toilets at half time to find people pooing in the sinks and taking lines of coke. Luckily I did not have my kids with me.

We all moan about the PG product (I do personally) but done right, going to a WWE live event really is good for the whole family.

There's always been a stigma with wrestling in this country but I think most of it is really brought upon by fans themselves. Not many wrestling fans have the confidence to really defend what they like, that's why many fans get bothered about people saying it's fake because it comes across as not very nice but the truth is everything on TV is fake. Even the news to a degree is carefully selected, what stories to tell, what spin to put on the stories. Everything on TV is fake but of course most wrestling fans would never say that or think of it that way. If someone said to me wrestling was fake I would simply ask them to show me something on TV which is real. Show me a movie that is real. You can't. What about people that go into work everyday, isn't that a version of yourself which is fake? How many people go to work everyday and say and do things they would in the real world? Not many. That's life for many people. For many people life is just one big work, one big public face that is put on. Really it's the fans that bring that negative tone on themselves, if they were really genuine fans of it they would be able to overcome those kinds of comments and answer them in a very simple way that would leave the person making the comments think about what they said. Life is too important to waste on what other people think or letting others put you down.

I think when I go this November to the Raw taping this is my 18th or 19th live event with the WWE and it is a good event for the whole family. Even up until 2008 where the TV shows were aimed at an older audience, the house shows were always aimed at all ages which it should be. I like seeing children enjoy wrestling and thinking it might be an experience they will remember for the rest of their life and maybe something that will keep them interested in it and maybe they'll want to learn how to do it and get involved in it.

This is very different to what I like with the TV shows. I agree with John Cena. I'm not his biggest fan, infact he's one of the reasons the company made Raw and the PPVs PG, he fought for it because of the increase in children and families at the shows but I do agree with him, I miss blood, i miss the intensity, i miss the adult nature of wrestling. We can go back decades in the wrestling business and even in the old days when there was territories in the USA, wrestling was serious, it was big business, it was about the fights, the feuds, it wasn't treated like a joke, it was very much something that the adults would enjoy and they did and they bought into it.

I miss that part of wrestling and it can easily be done in 2016. The Shane McMahon story is one example. That's a story that could easily bring back many fans who have left because everything is real but the WWE these days doesn't want to be seen as a soap opera. As hard as that might be for many to accept, the McMahon family arguing and fighting every week would outdraw any wrestling match they put on. They don't want storylines. They don't want anything like that. They want ESPN Sports Cente. They want big sponsors.

That is what I like to see in this thread!

Oh and on the whole shirts shouldn't be worn over the age of 11. debate. I get a wrestle crate every month (they're really good value., don't know if any of you lot get them) and they always come with a shirt and a lot of their designs are of great quality and I have no qualms leaving the house wearing them. I've certainly not felt judged wearing the one below. Excuse the face to go with it </3

https://twitter.com/_LucasMichael_/s...64522008285186

Strange times being a City fan hey mate. Should finish 3rd/4th in the league, already won the league cup and playing Real Madrid in the Champions League semi final. Yet most of us feel the season has been a let down

Don't seen 2 minutes ago I was going up and down the country watching us play the likes of Lincoln, Wycombe and Luton in the league (and losing against them) yet fast forward to now and we are still not happy ha

It's been a very up and down season hasn't it, but still a trophy out of it and a semi final with Real Madrid (if KDB and Aguero turn up on Tuesday who knows what will happen). I think that's just the pessimism in us all really, because we know they're capable of much more.

Oh aye, my Grandad and brother knows those memories all too well. I was brought into the footballing world in much more pleasant times, with PL status safely secured.

(Oh and to keep this thread on topic... CHOKESLAMS)

He seems as bored as hell anyway, just going through the motions.