>>11521827Not really.
One of the hidden secrets about wrestling history is that only a tiny percentage of the crowd dating back to the 1930s ever actually thought it was fully real. And kids of course.
There were various positions, some claiming that nothing was real, some claiming that only title matches were real, some believing other and weirder schizo conspiracies.
Ultimately though the majority of the crowd never believed it to be real from the 1930s onwards.
The big difference though, is that they didn't want to ruin it for others. They were perfectly happy to kayfabe other fans who thought it was real and treat the show with a suspension of disbelief. Fans kayfabing other fans was happening all the way into the late 90s/early 00s. In fact on some of the older messaging boards, it was against the rules to smarten up kids who found the board randomly before a mod could ban them.
I sometimes hear that wrestling has never been more popular than it is now. That's WWE brainwashed horseshit. In the 1970s, you had 40 promotions worldwide that were making good money and 10 of them were running stadium shows. Most promotions were running 7 days a week to decent crowds. It was a ratings and live event drawing smash. Now there's 3 companies worldwide, essentially. It has never been smaller than it is now.
Part of this was the breaking of the covenant. The agreement between fans and wrestlers to treat wrestling seriously. Once that went then all bets were off and it became a heckin gooderino acrobatics show where heels don't actually exist any more and nobody has any real heat.
