Impact Wrestling: There’s a fan etiquette problem in wrestling today

In the span of two back-to-back weeks within the same month, wrestlers got into intense confrontations with fans at ringside. Each respective incident occurred in Impact Wrestling and Ring of Honor.

While this article will speak more in depth about the most recent altercation that occurred at Impact Wrestling, it’s important to look at both situations to figure out where this disconnect of disrespect from fans against wrestlers could be rooted in. Let’s start by looking at the first incident in ROH.

A couple of weeks back, ROH’s new mean girl stable The Allure – helmed by Mandy Leon, Velvet Sky and Angelina Love – had a couple altercations with a fan during what should have been a standard night of television tapings. From the fan’s account, he didn’t say anything inappropriate – although heckling Velvet for dating Bully Ray and calling The Allure a “tramp stamp trio” is pretty inappropriate in my book – but it was enough for Leon and Velvet to allegedly spit on him.

After the four got into a shouting match on two separate occasions that night, Bully Ray intervened by having security send the fan to the back for a private pep talk on why said fan should respect the girls and to just “go be a fan.” This led to a further investigation and statement from ROH officials.

Hardly a week later, Taya Valkyrie got into an altercation of her own during Impact Wrestling’s A Night You Can’t Mist event from last Saturday in Philadelphia. There was actually footage that came with the news when it broke, although the video was filmed too late in the conversation to pinpoint exactly what the fan said to set the Knockouts Champion off. Granted, it’s worth noting that it’s been reported that the fan had been a problem with other wrestlers throughout this night.

On video, Taya and the fan shared angry exchanges until some expletive words that the fan said had convinced Taya to smack the beer out of his hand and walk away, which prompted the fan to spit on her.

I’m not sure what’s going on in the wrestling world to produce such high charged interactions so close together in time span from each other, but a change needs to be made.

It appears, to me at least, that one too many fans don’t understand the difference between heckling wrestlers in the fun spirit of kayfabe and outright spewing disrespectful remarks at them.

Heckling usually calls for the basic boos or a “You Suck!” chant directed at a heel. That’s not only textbook wrestling, but that behavior is encouraged at pretty much every wrestling promotion. What these two fans did appears to have gone a step beyond that and into something much more disparaging.

Both instances suggest that the fans intended no harm initially from their heckling and were there just to boo the heels, but both instances also show the fans going too far. Again, it’s unclear exactly what the fan said to Taya Valkyrie prior to the filming, but in the ROH situation, it’s much more evident how the fan crossed a line.

Even if he doesn’t recognize what he did was wrong and if no malice was intended on his end, there is no reason to call the wrestlers out their name with such derogatory labels as “tramp stamp trio.” There is no reason to ridicule Velvet Sky for dating Bully Ray, especially when their relationship is not even acknowledged in an onscreen storyline.

It is at this point that you’re no longer heckling a wrestling character. Now, you’re criticizing the person behind the character. If you’re at the movies and presented with a bad guy, you don’t boo the actor playing them. You can hate Thanos all you want, but there’s no reason to hate Josh Brolin and send him angry tweets for something his character did in Avengers. The same analogy applies to the wrestling world.

It brings to mind the night after WrestleMania 31 when a bevy of fans were chanting “You suck [insert wrestler’s partner name here]” at the wrestlers rather than the names of the wrestlers in the ring. A lot of fans were outraged and disgusted at chants like “You suck Cena!” and “You suck Uso!” and this incident is no different.

Could an argument be made that Bully Ray crossed the line to basically hound the fan in the backstage area unattended? Sure. Could an argument be made that Taya went too far when she knocked the beer out of the fan’s hand? Sure, but these wrestlers are human and as with all humans, you can’t tell them or predict how they will react or act. In high voltage situations like this, you can only predict that they will act and react.

I don’t say that with intention to justify anyone’s actions in either situation – although I think the victims in both situations can be understood and in some cases, justified, personally – but I do say that with worry that fans like these two are only going to such extreme lengths to heckle fans simply to get a reaction from wrestlers.

This is troubling because in the social media age of shock culture that we live in now, we’ve seen people go to some scary lengths for a quick 15 minutes of fame. If these two situations happened in the span of two weeks, what’s gonna happen in week three? Fans hopping in the ring to flat out attack wrestlers? Chucking heavy objects (i.e. beer glass) into the ring with intention to hurt the wrestlers? This could escalate very quickly and could produce horrifying results.

The sad part is that this 15 minutes of fame theory seems to be working. Both fans got their names in news articles – even the Impact Wrestling fan, who was ejected and banned from the building – and they’ve got me talking about them. Hell, these guys got me talking about what they did for 900 words straight and I’m nowhere close to being done.

Whatever the reason for these incidents seems to be, it seems evident that some fans need to learn proper wrestling show etiquette. Perhaps a change needs to be made for fans at wrestling shows; new rules implemented. The problem is trying to figure out how major wrestling promotions can implement such change in a way that every fan will properly abide by.

You could always create new rules, but you’re always going to get a gang of fans arguing that they paid their money and can do/say whatever they want to the wrestlers for the duration of the event, as if there was no regard to their respect. Even if new rules are implemented, they couldn’t possibly stretch far enough to get implemented in every single major promotion.

I don’t have the mind of a wrestling promoter and to be perfectly honest, I’ve never even been to a wrestling show so I can’t comment on what should be done at these shows or how it can be done. I’m the last person to ask in that area. All I know is that some fans need to understand that there is a line between being a fan and being a jerk.

There’s a difference between booing the heel characters and saying mean things about a wrestler’s personal life. If you’re still not sure what the difference is, then please, take some time to educate yourself on proper ringside etiquette before disrespecting the wrestlers; whether you meant to do so or not.