I Don't Watch Wrestling Anymore, Part One

Let's put this right out on the table: Professional wrestling, simply by the mere fact that it exists, insults our intelligence. It's dudes with ridiculous characters pretending to do ridiculous crap that no one would ever in a real form of competition. But I can live with that. Hell, that's what makes it fun. If it was just two straight-faced guys in black singlets rolling around in amateur holds for three hours, it would suck. So you have to have wrestling hillbillies, selectively blind referees, and iron-faced supermen who can get punched right in the mouth like twenty times, and not be as affected by it as you would be if I punched you once. I can dig that. I can take having my intelligence insulted just a little bit; that's what "suspension of disbelief" is all about. Honestly, it's no so much having my intelligence insulted, as it is sort of relaxing my intelligence enough so it doesn't care that there's a guy wrestling who's supposed to be an undead cowboy, even though he was an outlaw biker last year. But lately, pro wrestling (or should I say "sports entertainment?") has gone so far to where it doesn't so much insult my intelligence as it kicks my intelligence in the nuts, hits it with a sock full of quarters, and then goes after my intelligence's family. The main part - and it's not something esclusive to the WWE anymore, hell, I think I saw NWA Wildside do it a few years ago - is the stupid-assed Invisible Backstage Camera. See, the thing about wrestling is that while none of it is "real," so to speak, it needs to portray itself as being real, or the whole damn thing breaks down. If you're going to hit us over the head with how fake it is, why should we give a damn about who wins the match, or even if there's going to be a match? So if you want to have some wrestlers interacting outside of a match environment, just have a guy come down to the ring and grab a microphone, or have a guy doing an interview, when the other guy shows up and starts shit. It's as simple as that. Your crazy-ass storylines get to play out, and no one feels like an idiot for watching. But the way it is now, everyone backstage seems to have a camera on them at all times, and no one ever knows that it's there. Furthermore, they freely talk of all their deepest secrets and most sinister plans in front of this camera, which is being shown on live TV and little monitors throughout the building, yet anyone involved in a storyline off-camera is never aware of any of this happening. You mean to tell me that after Lita blabs to Stacey about being pregnant, Matt Hardy STILL doesn't know about it, a week later? Of all people, shouldn't he be at least watching a tape to scout opponents or something? Now, you can tell me some crap about "the soap opera aspect of the show" or whatever, but goddammit, I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways. You can't have s soap opera where Actor A plans to kill Actor B, and when they have their final confrontation, have a voiceover trying to tell us that it's a real, 100% legitemate fight to the death. People would feel like idiots and change the channel. And in wrestling, when you have Jim Ross trying to tell us that there's a real athletic competition going on, followed by invisible camera footage of Kane and Shane McMahon in a restaurant, exchanging menacing glances, people will feel like idiots and change the fucking channel. As such, I don't like feeling like an idiot, so that's one reason I Don't Watch Wrestling Anymore.
Suggestion of how to fix it? Go back to the old ways of doing stuff. When a guy needs to talk, have him do it in the ring or with an interviewer backstage. Then, you have the other guy come up and start shit. If you show someone backstage, have them acknowledge that there's a camera there, and have a reason for there to be a camera. Do the thing where there's a backstage reporter telling you what's up, then go for the earpiece, say something like "there's something happening in the locker room!" and have the camera man run with the reporter guy to where the guys are beating each other up. And hell, if you want to have the backstage secret-revealing, sinister plan-sharing stuff, bring back something like GTV. Just say we've put hidden cameras in all the locker rooms for "total access" or something, and have the crazy shit go down when someone forgets the camera's there. You keep your "edgy" bullshit without making everything look ridiculously fake. Whatever you do, just make sure you don't switch camera angles in a goddamn backstage segment. Nothing says quality TV like "we didn't know this would happen, but we had three cameras there anyway!" Put all this into motion, and you might be able to get me back, Vince, Jerry, and anyone else who does that crap. It'll at least be a start.