Fan Chants (What's Off Limits?)

[ChrisShields]

Taking this from a story I saw posted on one of the wrestling deal I follow on Facebook. Apparently some NXT fans chanted 'Build A Wall" At Andrade Cien Almas at the most recent tapings. I saw some people saying it's horrible and awful and should never be tolerated, others saying that it's no big deal at all and just part of wrestling. I find myself in between those two schools of thought. I do think that the chant is stupid and the people chanting it are assholes. At the same time, as a paying fan, are you not allowed to react and voice your like or dislike of a certain superstar? This is a heel receiving a chant that has a timely and topical reasoning behind it. Once again, I would like to point out that I don't like the chant and I do think it's stupid. I disagree with what they're saying, but I fully support their right to say it. As a paying fan, so long as you don't try to physically attack the performers or other fans, I think you do have the right to say whatever you want. Everyone around you might think you're a worthless piece of shit, but that's their right as well. So how do we determine what is and isn't off limits for someone to say? Obviously common decency should play a part in things, but that's another thing that is subjective. If you have a crowd of 20 and 1 person thinks that calling a heel a jerk is indecent, but the 19 other people don't, should they be allowed to decide that word is off limits? Just curious to see what other people thing, both on this specific instance and the subject as a whole.

[Drama Queen]

Very interesting topic....

first off, I haven't been keeping up, so I was not aware that Almas is now a heel. This actually makes a bit of a difference (even though the chant is quite heelish itself).

It belongs in the huge topic of general things that are happening since this election, but I'm going to try and keep it just contained to wrestling.

Yes, they are chanting at a heel... but even so, how are all other immigrants in the arena (including performers, NXT staff, building staff and fans) supposed to feel about it.

Like how were black people supposed to feel back in the day when Piper was using racist shit against Bad News Brown (despite the fact that Piper was supposed to be the face.

Should the one fan be allowed to decide what's off-limits... well, ultimately if people feel strong enough they will decide with their wallets. A chant like that might make me not want to go to another show. If I'm just one person, that's not really a big deal for the company. If this became a trend however and one out of every twenty (to use the example you gave) felt the same, then a normal company might take notice (WWE doesn't seem to notice that nobody likes Roman Reigns, so they might not be the best example haha).

It is in a business's best interest I suppose to find that sweet spot between allowing fans freedom, and restricting them from creating a hostile atmosphere.

And there are other aspects of the public image of the company to consider... they can't very well go on anti-bullying crusades if they allow that (then again a wrestling company doing that is a contradiction to begin with).

As for my own personal opinion on the moral issue of it, like you I think it's a stupid chant. Do I think it should be allowed? Sigh... that whole free speech vs banning hate speech debate, well I think that's a situational thing. (Which is a cop-out I know, but I really don't have time to touch that with even a fraction of the depth it needs)

[Goldferg]

I think the main crux of this is, is the chant about the wrestler, or is it about mexicans

Because while it's a little classless to be all like 'I hate Adrade Almas, I wish he went back to Mexico and never came back', it's at least hatred for the heel wrestler. That, we can all agree is part of the show.

If it's 'I hate all mexicans, build a wall to keep them out of my country' then it's straight up racism and shouldn't be tolerated.

And from my perspective 'build a wall' is a bit too close to the latter.

[ChrisShields]

I think the main crux of this is, is the chant about the wrestler, or is it about mexicans

Because while it's a little classless to be all like 'I hate Adrade Almas, I wish he went back to Mexico and never came back', it's at least hatred for the heel wrestler. That, we can all agree is part of the show.

If it's 'I hate all mexicans, build a wall to keep them out of my country' then it's straight up racism and shouldn't be tolerated.

And from my perspective 'build a wall' is a bit too close to the latter.

From what I have heard, these chants are only being directed at Almas (who is a heel now and has been playing up the arrogant dick role quite a bit.) These chants haven't been directed at other Mexican wrestlers, but then again he's also the only one in NXT that I can think of. No Way Jose is billed as being from the Domincan Republic, I believe. I guess we have to wait and see if this spreads to someone like Kalisto or Sin Cara or Gran Metalik. If it does, then it's built purely on racism and I would bet that security warns people about the chant, and if they continue tosses them. As it stands, it's being directed at one specific heel. It's stupid, and I think there's better chants you can do, but unless it starts getting directed at all Mexican wrestlers, I think it straddles the line between outright racism.

[Duckman]

Did anyone else hear the 'Chris Benoit' chants at the last NXT Takeover show from Toronto?  I heard them in the Joe v Nakamura main event when Joe put a cross face on.

I wonder if that chant and the one that's being talked about here, are more people trying to be smart asses, as opposed to people showing their support for a child murderer or their hatred for a certain race?  There's certainly a group within the smart fan base who really take pleasure in coming up with chants that will get them attention.  It's got really obvious in recent years during the RAW after WM when there's a lot of European fans at the show and they look to just make the show about them, as opposed to what they're watching.  It was fun for a few years, but even as a fan from this side of the pond, it makes me cringe how try hard they are with it.  Maybe this is a similar thing?  NXT crowds are certainly different from WWE crowds, I noticed that big time when I attended a NXT show last year.  Tons of smarks, tons of chants that are nothing to do with heat or what's happening, tons of people cat calling and trying to get people around them to laugh.  Not a lot of kids or actually anyone under the age of 25-40.

Using race to get heat has been in wrestling for a long time.  Being from somewhere outside of the USA has automatically made you a heel in wrestling going back to the aftermath of the 2nd world war.  There's always been an element of that in wrestling, these days thankfully it's not as bad as it used to be, but that's not to say fans aren't encouraged to boo a guy because he isn't from the US.  If you play race angles and such and make it 'part of the show' you do end up encouraging those people who actually are racist to feel they can express that at a show. 

I remember a few years back JBL doing a skit where he was out at night on the Mexican border and chasing people back over who were trying to get into the US.  I remember thinking at the time how horrible that was, but a lot of people just accepted it as JBL's character.  Same with Jack Swagger that 'we the people' deal - that some in the crowd agreed with and treated him like a baby face.

So if you have characters that are racist (which you could argue JBL's character was), and you're involved in a form of entertainment that has used race in the past to show that someone is 'bad,' I'm not surprised that some fans also jump on that bandwagon.

I think in this instance it sounds like some smarks trying to be clever or controversial, rather than the beginning of fans being overtly racist at shows.  At least that's what I hope.

Great topic for discussion though man.

[ChrisShields]

You're probably spot on about the smark assholes trying to get attention on themselves with a douchebag chant. I would say that it's maybe 10% about him being Mexican, and 90% them wanting to make themselves feel more important. Just watching NXT shows, I've seen their crowds get more and more douchey over time. It's highly possible that some of the people that joined in, did it for racist reasons, but I think most of them are basically just internet trolls who live close to Full Sail, like wrestling, and promised their mom that they would leave the basement for at least a few hours a week of she'd just get their damn step dad to quit being such a dick.

[Duckman]

I'd be much more comfortable with it being asshole smarks, as opposed to asshole racists!