Wrestling fans putting themselves over

Wrestling fans are ruining wrestling for me.

The latest instance was the Iron Man Match at the WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view earlier this month in Pittsburgh.

The match, featuring Seth Rollins and Dolph Ziggler, two of the company’s best workers, was a surprise choice for the main event, since it was for the second-tier Intercontinental title.

And fans at the live show expressed, well, not sure what they were expressing.

The live crowd counted down the final seconds toward each minute from the countdown clock on the Titantron.

Were they bored? Tired, after a four-hour-plus show? Trying to put themselves over, as some have speculated?

I tend to think it was the latter. It’s not enough to buy a ticket and watch anymore. If you can’t disrupt the show, you might as well sit at home and watch on TV, and snipe on Twitter, right?

On behalf of the rest of us, who still like to watch wrestling, please, stop.

And while we’re on the subject: stop channeling your inner Steve Austin, and chanting “what?” every time a performer takes a breath in a promo.

I’ve gotten to a point where I change the channel when the “what?” chant takes over a show, which of course punishes WWE, not the dolts in the live crowd.

Just can’t take it, is why I turn the dial.

I can write off the “boring!” chants you sometimes hear. I’ve worked backstage on a live pay-per-view that I co-wrote; one of our matches was interrupted by a “boring!” chant, but that was our fault, because we’d had a screw-up on time in an earlier match, and we were dragging a later one out to make sure the main event didn’t go on too early.

That match was “boring!” My guess is that a lot of the “boring!” matches on house shows and TV cards fall under that general rubric.

So, I’ll grant you “boring!”

Another issue: all the signs. Watching on TV, it’s just part of the wallpaper, but at the live show, it can be a problem when you’re sitting behind one, as I was at a live “Monday Night Raw” at JPJ a few years ago, about two-thirds of the way up the lower level, nowhere near the TV cameras, with a group of people in front of me throwing signs over their head every three or four seconds.

Really?

No, you’re not clever yelling “what?” And when you trash the main event because you wanted a different match to end it, think about it next time you’re deciding whether to buy tickets, and then, don’t.

Column by Chris Graham