12-20-2014, 05:48 PM
I have a confession.
I don't quite understand the importance of this trash talk thing. Honestly and truly, I don't. Though, I'm sure that much has already been established and that most people listening to this will look at me like I'm the crazy one for questioning it, but I have to. What's the point? Honestly and truly, I don't get it. These arguments, they all end up in the exact same way. Completely and utterly off the topic of wrestling, instead focusing on personal lives, on this, that, and the other thing and for what? Psychological warfare? Though, everyone brushes off the words said to them as if they were nothing so even if the figurative blows did land, everyone's so adept at playing tough and acting like it doesn't faze them and that isn't even getting to the people who honestly and truly don't care what others think about them. It's a pointless waste of energy, and a hypocritical one, if you think about it. Allow me to explain.
So, say someone is trash talked, and their first reaction is to respond, trying to rip the claims and insults and accusations to shreds and to show that bit of defiance, they throw in the phrase "I don't care what you think of me" at any point, they're lying. Flat out. Because, if they really didn't care, they wouldn't feel the need to respond at all. It wouldn't register.
Now, me? I do care. I care too much, if anything. So, please don't think I'm putting myself in the category of people who don't care. No no, I just feel the need to point out that very, very few people can honestly claim that they fit the category.
And yet, people say it. They say they don't care in the same breath they use to rip into something someone else said about them, trying to the get last word in to win a battle that isn't even necessary. Week in and week out, it happens like clockwork. Even in this match, where Gator and Steve Davids have exchanged words, tearing into each other for everything under the sun and I'm left here, wondering how it'll help either side. It's bad form to question the aims of someone who so graciously offered to be my partner, but it's something I can't get out of my head. Who's the winner of a trash talk exchange? Truly? The person who can land in more licks at another's expense like some kind of schoolyard bully feeding off shallow adoration for being able to make someone feel like dirt, if only for a moment? What do you win? A feeling of elation that fades as fast as it comes?
Now, before you try to compare this to a wrestling match, I feel like I need to address the discrepancies between wrestling and trash talking. First of all, wrestling's a competition that determines a clear winner and a (mostly) clear loser, done for fortune and fame. Trash talk is, and please pardon my language, a pissing match where neither side walks away unscathed and determining a winner is for the most part about as objective as a favorite films list because how can you make an objective scale for it? By which side hurts the others' feelings more? Well, as I already said, everyone's so quick to throw on the phrase "I don't care" and is so cautious not to show how they feel about it so you really can't. And also, there's no money to be gained from doing it. When I was reading through my contract, at no point did I read that I would make more money for trash talking. Not at one single point and I'm guessing there's nothing in anyone's contracts for that because again, what would be the point? It won't make you more popular with anyone on a personal level, because all you're doing is showing the negative parts of your personality, the parts that get off on kicking someone while they're down. The parts you would never show in public if you could help for fear of being ostracized. But at the same time, it's a popular habit amongst us as wrestlers. So much so that I was actually told that if you don't engage in it, you'll never advance very far, which blew my mind completely. That's how deep this mentality's been ingrained in the fabric of this federation and likely the wrestling business as a whole.
It's crazy.
It's absolutely insane. Especially if you define insanity by the Einstein quote "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results". Because the other thing about trash talk I notice, is it's repetitive. It really is. All the going back and forth, the ripping quotes apart and taking them completely out of context, the "I know you are but what am I?" mentality. The denials, the anger, the threats. Everything. There's nothing wrong with confidence, nothing at all, but it gets to the point of overconfidence and that's the type of attitude that these exchanges are full of. Arguing, bickering more accurately, back and forth with each other, and getting nowhere. I say nowhere because the next week, they're back with a new opponent, combating the same verbal abuses and throwing the same back out. Like clockwork.
So, it's with this in mind that I turn now to my opponents; Gator and LH Harrison, and wish them the best of luck. Now, this isn't to say I'm going to lay down or forfeit the match or anything like that, because once the bell rings, the competition begins. And, though I may not look the part, I am fiercely competitive. Though, I guess that is par for the course here so that isn't saying much.
May the better team win.
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