How To Behave In Public: A Night Spent At The Local Indie Show

I recently went to a local indie show. As a followup to a previous post, there were three suicide dive spots, and they were all over the course of the first two matches. Everyone worked a fairly safe, but very entertaining style, which led to an overall very good show. It is a shame that the thing I'm most compelled to write about happened outside of the ring.

Coming out of intermission, the promotion began the second half of the show with the women's title on the line. We got a pretty good match, and my friend who I attended the show with and I found ourselves firmly supporting the babyface champion in her successful title defense. Unfortunately, you would've never guessed a match was happening from the crowd reaction. Instead, the crowd was too busy trying to get themselves over by chanting at the competitors to dance, and, significantly worse, "69." It even got to the point where it appeared the babyface partner of the champion broke character to say something to these alleged fans.

Whenever someone in a crowd is being particularly rude or obnoxious, you will hear the excuse of "I paid for my seat, I have the right to act how I want." To an extent, there is some truth to this. In this particular situation however, these spectators disrupted the performance that, not only they, but hundreds of others paid to see. They found their lack of respect for the in-ring competitors so entertaining, that they ruined the experience for those around them. Disrespecting women just because they're women and chanting sexually charged phrases at them is unacceptable, and the fact that an entire corner of a room felt the need to join in is a disgrace.

Something like this is going beyond the point of just being a crowd that boos the face and cheers the heel. In that scenario, I'm all for the right to express yourself coming with the price of admission. I cannot condone objectifying the performers. These people have trained many long, hard hours to put on the best show they can for you. No amount of money you paid or they are making gives you the right to strip them of their dignity. As a community of fans, we need to do a better job of policing ourselves when we hear things like this begin to happen, and I appreciate everyone that joined in on hiking this behavior as both a sign of disapproval, but also to drown out the chants. If you plan on attending an event soon, keep in mind that there are quiet often children around, and that these wrestlers are putting their bodies on the line for you. You owe it to all involved to be respectful of those two facts.

Pro wrestling fans have been harshly judged as, putting it lightly, the lowest common denominator. Enjoying a bunch of brightly dressed, larger-than-life characters pretending to hurt each other will probably do that. We should strive to be better. Keep in mind that for every blood thirsty fan ready to shout "kill" during every match, you're likely to find someone who enjoys "The World's Sweetest Man" Jervis Cottonbelly. I'm not saying you need to walk on eggshells all show, but maybe take a look around and think about if you'd be cool with shouting what you're about to shout in front of these people outside of the context of a wrestling show.