After reading a bit of discussion on The Wrestling Blog, Fair to Flair and Twitter about the dueling chant, I felt compelled to share my piece. As a veteran live wrestling show fan (in multiple promotions, cities, and countries), I think I have a fairly good grasp on the concept. In fact, if you follow SHIMMER or CHIKARA or ACW, you’ve probably heard me and my friends leading a dueling chant ourselves. As someone who has been there, done that, and done it better than most let me first say: put away the idea that fans do this as some self-indulgent attempt to draw attention to themselves.

As anyone who attends wrestling shows can tell you, the asshole fans who want to draw attention to themselves actually draw attention to themselves. They don’t join in with other fans to cheer on a wrestler or applaud the match. They cat call. They make obnoxious comments. They talk about the football game or cheesecake or make unfunny and embarrassing Undertaker references at ROH shows or do other things that have no purpose save making others look at them and acknowledge their existence. You won’t hear these people on TV or DVD, but they are there at every show. They are the actual jerks attempting to take away from the match for their own benefit.

The true vocal fans, the troublemakers, the chanters, the clappers, the singers are on the complete opposite end. They are the hardworking, very small minority of people that make the difference between a “hot” crowd and a “dead” one. They might be just three or four people in a crowd of two or three hundred, but they’re the ones who get all the chants (not just the dueling ones) going. The majority of fans only join in with the fire starters when they can be bothered, which is only a fraction of the time. The notion that either of these factions, the lead vocalists or their grudging backing chorus, clamp their hands numb and scream their throat raw out of anything other than love or passion for the sport is, simply, wrong.

On dueling chants specifically, K Sawyer Paul suggested they were a failure because they don’t clearly convey their purpose. The mistake is in thinking that the crowd has a purpose. A wrestling crowd is not, in any way, a homogenous group with a single defined goal. It is a collection of individuals with various tastes and preferences that are in constant conflict with each other. 

When I and 10 to 20 of my favorite people in the world at the moment scream, “Let’s-Go-Kana,” and then 10 to 20 people who in that moment I hate more than anything in the world scream, “Let’s-Go-Sara,” we’re both making very clear our, separate, goals: We want Kana to choke the life out of Sara with the Kana Lock. They want Sara to decapitate Kana with an axe kick. 

This is not a detached, orchestrated, cooperative, unified attempt; it’s fucking war. We must scream louder and harder and longer or they (those putrid sub-humans  who dare challenge us and our chosen fighter) will win. In that moment it’s all or nothing. Kill or be killed. It’s Pro Wrestling.

You might not understand this if you haven’t been there, in the trenches, trying to convince Chris Hero that he absolutely cannot beat ACH while Chris Hero’s many fans reassure his ego with a “Yes-he-can!”If you were there but sat unmoved and didn’t cheer “Ha-ma-da” or “Me-li-ssa,” then you didn’t feel that surge of adrenaline and you didn’t see how time stood still and the euphoria hit and you didn’t realize you were not only watching the perfect wrestling match, but that your voice had become a part of it. The wrestlers see it and feel it too. They’ve told me. They live for those moments just like fans. 

Of course not every chant fans earnestly perform is good, but the truly problematic ones (“U-S-A” or “Show-Your-Tits”) tend to have more obvious issues than merely seeming mildly pretentious or confusing in a limited context. So, before judging a chant, of any kind, consider what it’s like for the people actually saying it, and the wrestlers as they hear their fans fight for them. Better yet, participate yourself at the next show you attend. It’s an experience worth having.

And just one more thing: To any Cheerleader Melissa fans attending NCW Femmes Fatales in Montreal next month, I only have this to say: Let’s-Go-Hailey! - Clap - Clap - ClapClapClap

Leslie, aka John Hyperion, is the editor-in-chief for the progressive pro wrestling blog, the Dirty Dirty Sheets. Check it out for the beat on everything puroresu, joshi and independent wrestling.

Edited by TH.

I was not surprised to hear that in the episode of Wrestlespective Radio where Jason Mann and Alex Torres talk about Christopher Daniels vs AJ Styles from last years’ Destination X PPV, they get into the topic of dueling chants. They think it’s a self-indulgent thing an audience does that takes away from the match. TH disagrees, saying that self-indulgence has little to do with it. He instead claims that the chant is a side-effect of how different the independent scene is from the big-times:

It might not be traditional, but that’s what’s great about indie wrestling; it often promotes the non-traditional and gives it a platform so that it might gain traction on higher levels. If the future of pro wrestling is less about monolithic heel and face roles and more about guys getting fan followings, then it’s got to start somewhere.

Chants in general are a pretty interesting thing to discuss, but I like this very specific nook, because chants are weird.

Let’s take a step back from chants to overall crowd noise, and ask ourselves: why are we making any noise at all? If you’re sitting alone watching wrestling on television, it’s not likely you’re making much noise. Perhaps you are if there are people around you. The likelihood goes way up if you’re in the arena, but even then, some crowds are famously silent.¹ I’ve been criticized by people I’ve attended wrestling shows with for being too quiet, because I don’t really chant or cheer or whatever. I watch, and I watch intently. I find it really difficult to lose myself and join the masses, and because I find it so difficult, I find it really interesting.

Sometimes you cheer because there’s a guy in the ring you want to win, and him winning will make you happy. Sometimes you cheer because you know that crowd reaction is the accepted barometer for a wrestlers’ popularity, and the more he gets, the more we’ll get out of him. Sometimes you boo for the same reason: You love watching a heel do heelish things, and so booing helps that continue. Sometimes you yell things that make sense in the context of a match, and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, it really does sound super self-indulgent to the rest of the audience and/or the people at home.

But I’d like to suggest that all crowd noise is self-indulgent. It may have an effect, but there’s no quantifiable result of that, only a loose aggregation.² You may feel like you’re part of the show, but in reality, you are an extra, there to make the evening look more important to those who are not there, and you paid for the privilege. To sum up: You are cheering because it makes you feel good, or part of the show, or whatever. But nobody asked you to cheer (well, nobody forced you to) and nobody is going to get hired, fired, promoted, or demoted because you did or didn’t. These things only happen in the communal and even then only if you’re lucky.

It’s a curious thought, this idea that cheering in wrestling can help a guy win more. It’s curious because it’s probably more correct in wrestling than in sports, where a players’ ability is 99.9% the reason anything happens. But in wrestling, crowd reaction take a much bigger piece of the pie. In wrestling, crowd reaction can change finishes, alter scene and match times, and change careers and long-term planning. So it’s not crazy to think that your voice matters, and to make that voice loud and passionate.

Jason has made this argument on a few podcasts (one or two with me), that he’s not a fan of dueling chants. I think the root of his disapproval is that they seem far more self-indulgent than most, far more than simple cheering and booing. The dueling chant does come across as the crowd trying to add a layer onto the match, but it also sounds like they don’t know what to do with themselves. There are chants that favour one character over another, and there are also chants that communicate how well the entire match or show is going. But unlike chants of overall approval (“This is awesome/This is wrestling”, as snarky as they can even be at times), or chants of overall disapproval (“Boring” comes to mind as the clearest), the dueling chant is tough to shake out value. I guess the crowd likes or hates both wrestlers equally, but does that mean the show has failed in some way?

TH mentions that, no, wait, this is actually a sign of approval:

While the promotions end up pushing people as the alignment they want them as, sometimes, the fans just don’t accept it. They have favorites, and they vociferously cheer them, not as a way to get themselves over, but as a way to show that wrestler he’s/she’s supported.

I’ll extend that idea: if I hear a “Let’s go Daniels/Let’s go AJ” chant, I interpret it as not so much an approval of the two characters, but of the prospective performance they’re about to give. It’s sort of the best way a wrestling audience knows how to communicate this idea: “We know you are trying to entertain us, and we approve of this pairing based on past performances either together or with other dance partners.” It’s a chant built for the age where a wrestling fan is looking less for a winner or a loser (and, by extension, a hero or a villain), and looking more for a great wrestling match.

That does not mean I think it’s the best route to go, though. Because I had to take the time to unpack the chant, the chant is a failure. Crowd noise should be obvious. If the crowd wants to make known its approval or disapproval of a wrestler, a match, or even the prospective possibility of quality, then that chant should be crystal clear. The dueling chant is a tacked-on approach and not a proper re-thinking of what the audience is supposed to like and dislike, and it absolutely does come across as confusing. TH is probably right that it’s a side-effect of being in a small crowd where the rules are different, but that doesn’t help the guy watching the DVD, and it doesn’t help the promoter trying to figure out who to highlight for the next show.³

So, what to replace it with? I’d love to hear from people with ideas. I have a few of my own: for overall approval of a scene, why not just a round of standing applause? It’s classy, loud, respectful, and looks great on television. For disapproval? Vegetables. Throw tomatoes and lettuce and other salad items at the shitty wrestlers. If Shakespearean dandy’s can handle it, surely tough guy fake fighters can.

K Sawyer Paul is an author and publisher living in Toronto. He tweets and tumbls. In the wrestling world he is known for This is Sports Entertainment and International Object. 

Edited by TH.