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Why Do People Shun Lucha Underground And NJPW Without Trying Them?

12K views 93 replies 47 participants last post by  Arkham258 
#1 ·
I see people on here constantly badmouth what WWE is doing on their weekly shows which is fine but then these same people say they refuse to watch LU or NJPW or ROH or any other form of wrestling that's out there. If they're sick of the WWE product, why don't they just watch something else? This is one of the brightest eras for easily available wrestling because there is so much quality out there and it's all on the internet.

Anybody know why people are so quick to reject any non-WWE form of wrestling?
 
#8 · (Edited)
One of the weakest explanations I've ever gotten for not watching a new wrestling show is "I don't know who any of these guys are".

You know...there was a time when you didn't know who Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Ric Flair, The Undertaker, and John Cena were. You gave WWE a chance at one point...so why wouldn't you give other wrestling show's that same chance?

I guess this is where I differ from some other fans. There are fans that are just born and bred WWE fans and refuse to watch any other wrestling and WWE is all they know. When I was a kid, I started off watching just WWF, but then my mom gave me a wrestling magazine with Sting on the cover. I was like "Who is that?", and I read the magazine and I see photos of a match with Vader and I think "That looks awesome! I can't believe there is MORE wrestling out there! I have to check it out!". From there, I found WCW, and then that led to finding out about the NWA's history and that led to a small exposure to Japanese wrestling and from there I found ECW, and then from there I got into Indy wrestling, and once WCW & ECW were gone, I found TNA and ROH, and this year, I have probably watched more wrestling outside of WWE than I have in my entire life. That isn't done to be rebellious or to give WWE the finger. I do it because I love the art form and I am always looking for new experiences and ways to enjoy it. I love Lucha Underground, I love NJPW, and I'm willing to give other promotions and other show's a chance just in case I wind up loving them too.

And that mindset carries over to other mediums as well. I like Marvel more than DC (at least right now anyway) but I wouldn't read/watch just Marvel products or even just Marvel and DC products. My favorite show in my youth was The Simpsons, but that doesn't mean I was not going to watch South Park or Family Guy.
 
#17 ·
One of the weakest explanations I've ever gotten for not watching a new wrestling show is "I don't know who any of these guys are".
i've never understood this hindrance personally because one of the things i really enjoy when watching a different wrestling promotion is getting to know new characters, feuds etc...


i would really urge any wwe fan that is shitting on the current product, to not only try different promotions (nxt doesn't count) but also be patient with them, when you've been accustomed to a wwe style wrestling show for so long then it's obviously going to take a little time adapting another wrestling promotion doing things in a different way.
 
#2 ·
People are scared of leaving their emotional comfort zone

I personally walk in and out if my comfort zone and I appreciate quality wrestling so much more now
 
#4 ·
It's the sheep mentality that most WWE fans have. They don't like anything that's not WWE because to them if another company has lower ratings and isn't as popular then it must suck in their eyes. This is similar as to why there are Apple and Android fanboys, certain TV Show fanboys, etc. They are loyal to what they like period and are blindly ignorant of anything else.
 
#28 ·
It's the sheep mentality that most WWE fans have. They don't like anything that's not WWE because to them if another company has lower ratings and isn't as popular then it must suck in their eyes. This is similar as to why there are Apple and Android fanboys, certain TV Show fanboys, etc. They are loyal to what they like period and are blindly ignorant of anything else.
It's off-topic, but it was interesting to read that. A girl I know refuses to drink Pepsi (referring to it as "rotten"), but when she asks for a Coke and people pour Pepsi (with her thinking it's Coke), she usually asks for a refill. :lol

Anyway; I've never actually seen someone shun Lucha Underground on this forum, it's actually the complete opposite. I would search for it online, but I'm more than content with the old WWF PPV's and I also enjoy the current TNA product as well.
 
#54 ·
Not everyone in New Japan is a shooter. Toru Yano and Captain New Japan are comedy acts. Iizuka is a wild man. Yujiro Takahashi is a traitor and a playboy who bangs porn stars. Bad Luck Fale is a monster. Togi Makabe is basically a Guerrilla and Tomohiro Ishii a pitbull (their personalities fit the animals they are nicknamed after). Kazuchika Okada is a rich kid who thinks he can rewrite wrestling history in his image. Tanahashi claims to personify real wrestling and love of the sport over McDonald's style wrestling and Strong Style (his rivalry against Nakamura stems from this). Liger and Tiger Mask are superheroes. I mean I got most of this stuff without the knowing the language at all.

Shibata is the only shooter character in the entire promotion.
 
#80 ·
Because they're close minded. They've been tricked to believe that WWE is the only wrestling promotion in the world. Reality is, there are several companies out there who CONSTANTLY put on a better show than WWE, names like NJPW, ROH and LU comes to mind.

I grew up watching WWE, but being the curious guy that I am, I was interested when the Internet started to spread the news of Lucha Underground. I watched the first episode and I absolutely fell in love with Lucha Undergrond. It feels different than WWE, every single talent on the roster means something, something that WWE fails to do with RAW and SmackDown every week. Not only that, but I also watched Wrestle Kingdom back in January and it absolutely destroyed the Royal Rumble.

Quite honestly I don't understand how can you still eat the crap Vince McMahon offers you, when there are plethora of choices outside who offer a better product. If you tried and still don't like that's another story.
 
#86 ·
Because they're close minded. They've been tricked to believe that WWE is the only wrestling promotion in the world. Reality is, there are several companies out there who CONSTANTLY put on a better show than WWE, names like NJPW, ROH and LU comes to mind.

I grew up watching WWE, but being the curious guy that I am, I was interested when the Internet started to spread the news of Lucha Underground. I watched the first episode and I absolutely fell in love with Lucha Undergrond. It feels different than WWE, every single talent on the roster means something, something that WWE fails to do with RAW and SmackDown every week. Not only that, but I also watched Wrestle Kingdom back in January and it absolutely destroyed the Royal Rumble.
So did Lucha Underground's Aztec Warfare, which was basically LU completely schooling WWE on how to do a match WWE FUCKING INVENTED, and also adding some new twists on it.
 
#6 ·
Because WWE fans are indoctrinated morons that regularly get fed crap and acknowledge that they're fed crap based on crowd reactions (when I watched) yet still continue to watch the product. I find it absolutely ridiculous that instead of watching NJPW or Lucha underground, which is better than WWE in every facet sans entrance music, they would rather start stupid anti-WWE Hashtags and spend $100 to boo Roman Reigns and shit on half the matches.

If some of these protesting dumbasses actually gave another promotion a chance, whether it be the two aforementioned or ROH, AAA, CMLL, or heck, even TNA, they'd probably find a new promotion they really enjoy and have little desire to watch the WWE and it's monotonous garbage. Then, WWE would lose fans and actually have a real reason to improve and put on a better product. Then, we'd have better wrestling across television and everyone would win.
 
#10 ·
This.

It boggles my fucking mind, that people still won't give TNA, PWG, NJPW, and LU a chance, yet still sit through WWEs shit, week after week, after week.

How can people still swallow the crap WWE force-feeds them, when they're four great wrestling promotions out there, putting WWEs garbage to shame, every time one of these companies puts on a show?
 
#9 ·
I absolutely adore Lucha Underground (now that I've started watching again) and have seen a few episodes of NJPW.

The fact is, while WWE is still shitty, most of my favorites are still there. Now maybe if they all jumped ship to somewhere else, then I wouldn't really have a reason to watch WWE anymore.
 
#36 ·
The nice thing about LU is it's brand new. For NJPW just watch from Wrestle Kingdom or start during G1 Climax which a tournament for a shot at the title.

It's kinda like saying where should someone start watching WWE, they just do.
 
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#15 ·
I gave up on WWE over a year ago. The only thing I really go out of my way to watch anymore is NJPW. I want to get into Lucha Underground but at this point its more a time thing than anything else. Kinda hard to make room for it in my viewing schedule but I plan on it sometime soon.

As for others who won't give them a chance...fuck 'em, they deserve WWE. If you won't even try something just because its different, then stay with your garbage and let its incompetence eternally piss you off. Its your own fault.
 
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#33 ·
Watchung Lucha Underground and NJPW is a lot less time consuming. LU is one hour long whereas WWE has way too much programing from Smackdown, Raw, NXT, and Mainevent which is a total of six hours a week not including ppvs.

NJPW typically has one or two important shows a month outside the G1, NJ Cup, and BSOJ.

Raw feels like a complete waste of time and so does Smackdown. LU uses their hour better than WWE's six.
 
#51 ·
LOL at people talking about the inconvenience of watching Lucha Underground. Is it so hard to turn on your fucking TV? Unless your provider doesn't get El Rey Network.

What pisses me off is most of the podcasts that supposedly cover wrestling...only cover WWE. Apparently, ROH, NJPW, and Lucha Underground (not to mention indie promotions and TNA), don't exist. This mindset that WWE is wrestling fucking pisses me off...especially when Vince...FUCKING HATES WRESTLING!

Everyone universally agrees that WWE sucks right now, yet NO ONE WANTS TO COVER OTHER WRESTLING PROMOTIONS

Fucking insanity.

Getting back to Lucha Underground, they literally do EVERYTHING that people wish WWE would do...as well as innovative stuff NO other wrestling company has done. In that way, they have a little bit of an ECW feel to them.

And the wrestling being more like TV thing Vince has been trying to do forever? Lucha Underground finally fucking figured it out. I guess having REAL television and Hollywood talents (versus the no talent hacks WWE hires) will do that.

WWE's bullshit bragging about being the longest running TV series on TV. Whatever. Lucha Underground actually is run like a TV series and not just pretending to be one. The fact that they are also a great wrestling promotion on top of that (with all that fine AAA talent) is icing on the cake.

If everyone turned off Raw and tuned into Lucha Underground on Wednesdays...the pro wrestling industry would be all the better for it. Lucha Underground is what modern wrestling looks like. WWE is as dated as ever.
 
#56 ·
LOL at people talking about the inconvenience of watching Lucha Underground. Is it so hard to turn on your fucking TV? Unless your provider doesn't get El Rey Network.
You really need to take a chill pill. The problem with some of you fanboys is how elitist you are. Get over yourselves. And this is coming from someone who not only agrees with the prevailing opinion of LU being far better than WWE but actually watches LU.
 
#62 ·
Most WWE fans are petty, markish and dumb, they also take after their hero Vince and don't care for Hispanics, let alone Hispanics in masks! (Super scary) As for NJPW, they tune in and are confused why something from Japan isn't anime so they get turned off because they can't handle such a revelation.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Because WWE is the Nr.1 Company and everything is irrelevant to them...remember that advert? "I'm not a fan of pro wrestling, I'm a fan of WWE". Summs it up quite perfectly.

Although tbh, I don't watch NJPW either, don't like their production values plus I have a limited amount of time I want to spend on just wrestling in my free time. If they had a one hour weekly show like LU I'd give them another chance though. I think with WWE fans it's the same, WWE is the maximum they want to spend their free time with wrestling related so there's that.
 
#7 ·
It's a comfort zone thing I suppose. It took me long enough to give something else a try. I'm loving AAA, and I can enjoy puro if the mood should take me.
 
#12 ·
It's just further proof that blind fanboyism should be classed as a form of mental illness
 
#14 ·
Perhaps some wrestling fans are not as open minded as they could be and as many have said are in a comfort zone. Most mainstream fans are exposed to wwe/wwf and not much else. So anything that is not wwe/wwf is a big culture shock to them. When they don't see these big arena's with thousands of fans, fireworks, big entrances and recognisable faces they will at times be turned off and therefore that mindset limits them from discovering what else the wrestling world has to offer.

It's kind of like how men in my area have a very limited criteria in terms of what type of women they go for....they have to be blonde, they have to do this, they have to look like this etc etc.....it does not matter what other options there are and so long as they match that criteria they have set in their minds they will go for it regardless of how bad they maybe treated. odd comparison I know, but one that makes sense in my mind
 
#20 ·
They are people who think like Vince or think WWE is the best simply because of its monopoly in the United States which in the coming decades might not last because promotions from Mexico and Japan are penetrating the US. They are still a long, long away from taking a market share from WWE but they can get new fans people don't watch WWE at all, which seem to starting to happen.

I also think some of these people have issues with Japanese and Mexican wrestlers since I constantly see people refer to them as charismaless and vanilla even though guys like Nakamura and Pentagon Jr have more character and flash than some of Vince's hand picked boys.
 
#22 ·
For me it's because I prefer superstars with personalities, charisma and mic skills. Larger than life, production values and guys who have a good look. I tried watching non-WWE but was tired of wrestler a vs wrestler b in matches with no story or buildup. Tried watching japanese wrestling but all the guys had the same gimmick 'tough shooter' and the crowds were dead. WWE for me is exciting and has so many characters to follow.
 
#39 · (Edited)
For me it's because I prefer superstars with personalities, charisma and mic skills. Larger than life, production values and guys who have a good look. I tried watching non-WWE but was tired of wrestler a vs wrestler b in matches with no story or buildup. Tried watching japanese wrestling but all the guys had the same gimmick 'tough shooter' and the crowds were dead. WWE for me is exciting and has so many characters to follow.
but isn't this wwe seriously? case in point the build up to wm31 which everyone said was almost non existent.

as for things like characters, mic skills, larger than life characters, booking and charisma that wwe supposedly excel at, is roman reigns really a better character than ec3 of tna? is rollins really better on the mic than eli drake of tna? does john cena really have more charisma than kurt angle of tna? how did wwe screw dean ambrose up so bad that he has practically turned him into a poor man's eric young of tna, why is it that mil muertes, pentagon jr and cage of lucha underground come across far better as feared monster heels than either the big show or kane even though they are all nearly a full foot shorter than them in height?

as for wwe's presentation, if you watched 2 hours of lucha underground followed by 2 hours of wwe, it makes wwe feel amateurish

this is wwe backstage -


and this is lucha underground backstage -
 
#24 · (Edited)
I doubt people shun them on purpose. They are just not as accessible as WWE which is all over the place every week.

WWE is like a bad habit that people get stuck to. Nobody really enjoys watching it, but they just aren't able to try anything else. It's comparable to a drug addiction and rehabilitation by watching quality wrestling is the only way to break it.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Watch from Grave Consequences til now and I think you'll like it. The beginning of LU was kind of a cluster fuck because it was new and they had to debut so many people too quickly.

 
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