7

I woke this morning to this question: What is the reason of feud between “wyatt” family?

I've voted to close, as to me, despite the fact WWE is an episode based show, it's not "Movies & TV" in the traditional sense. It's a sporting question through and through and thus I think it's far better suited on the Sports Beta site.

Does anyone have any comments on this? Has this issue cropped up in the past and have these types of questions been declared on/off-topic?

Edit:

Going on the answers below, it looks like @SystemDown's is the one to go with - treat story-related questions on topic, treat wrestling move questions off topic.

I particularly like this solution as it aligns us perfectly with what the Sports Stack Exchange community has decided, based on the question I posted over there. They will send story related stuff our way and keep wrestling move questions.

11
  • The larger question is, if we entertain questions about reality TV and unscripted TV, to which this seems to relate the most (though, one could argue WWE is not less scripted than Days of our Lives). And to this the answer seems (unfortunately) to be yes, given the gazillions of questions we have about Ultimate Survivor (or how that stuff's called) the Great Whatever Bakeoff and other stuff like that (including WWE).
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 9:09
  • 4
    I just don't see it. I think WWE is totally off topic. It's not a TV show, it's a sporting show which happens to have weekly episodes. It's carried primarily by sporting channels and comes in at number 8 in the most watched sports in America, ahead of even motorsports. If it stays, so be it, but in the interest of the asker I'd be migrating it to the Sports Beta site where I think it's far more likely to get an answer.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 9:13
  • 1
    I don't "like" it either, but it probably falls in the realm of sports-entertainment rather than athletic-sports. Its in a grey area, so I would probably lean towards allowing it. If the user thinks they could get a better answer on Sports then they could ask to migrate it, or after a few days of getting nowhere here, could re-ask it on Sports.
    – iandotkelly Mod
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 13:46
  • Still not buying it. If it stays, so be it, but it's not entertainment in the sense a British/American sitcom would be. It's obviously intended to be a sporting event, albeit a scriped one. Does this mean questions like "What was the reason behind the comments such and such made when presenting Sunday Night Football (now in its "seventh season") on NBC on such and such a date?" would be on-topic? After all, these are technically episodic shows. Similarly, sporting talk shows are episodic - but I'd consider them all off topic here.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 13:49
  • 2
    Hmmm. This is kinda tricky. How do you define a "sporting event" for the purposes of exclusion? One tack we might want to explore is the venue. Pro wrestling, like other more "legitimate" sports, is conducted in an arena with a live audience. While other TV competitions are either filmed in a studio, or are filmed on location without an audience. Then again, is pro wrestling a sport or an entertainment event masquerading as a sport? That being said, I personally believe that pro wrestling is more entertainment than sport, and I would be ok with questions about it.
    – System Down
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 17:51
  • 1
    @SystemDown: I think my issue is that America bills things like American Football as episodic. Sunday Night Football even has "Produced by" and "Music by" etc in its opening credits. But I would consider questions about it just... out of place here.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 24, 2014 at 17:58
  • 2
    As per @DustinDavis' idea, I've posted a question on this on the Sports Stack Exchange, to see how they'd receive it.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:49
  • @AndrewMartin excellent. I hope that "wait and see" turns into a yes or no.
    – DustinDavis
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:59
  • @DustinDavis: For now it seems like wait and see again. The moderator over there isn't sure.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 18:01
  • Which makes me wonder, though, will this apparently new and more direct migration policy on Sports have us fear a wave of WWE-soap questions in the future? ;-)
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 20:45
  • @NapoleonWilson: I doubt it. They've even less questions on the WWE than us at present. Maybe one day, but we can tackle that then. For now, it's so damn rare it's not really happening. We can call reality TV and scripted wrestling in scope, but fans of both seem to be going elsewhere for their fix!
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 21:30

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
10

I've been giving this issue a fair bit of thought without going anywhere until I realized that pro wrestling is part story part sport (though not a competition). That's what distinguishes pro wrestling from other "legitimate" sports, the presence of a scripted story line.

Now, what I propose is this: if the question is about the story line part (as in the question referenced by the OP) then this question is on topic. However, if the question is about the sport part of wrestling (e.g. What's the difference between a German suplex and a drop suplex?) then that would be considered off topic.

2
  • 2
    I like this, although to be honest I think it might be tidier to either allow it all or ban it all. But this is definitely a good proposal
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 18:06
  • I can buy into this, for the most part, except... a lot of the "moves" you see in a wrestling match are based on genuine catch wrestling, but much more of it would be closer to stunt work.
    – KutuluMike
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 1:55
3

I disagree that it's a poor question. I think it fits in here just fine. The question was about elements of a story plot from a television show. The show may be labeled as "sports entertainment", but it's an episodic television show with a seriously deep and complex story line where certain parts can be traced back years.

In my opinion, it's no worse than asking about the story line for the big bang theory. It's not like he was asking "who won the football game last night", or "why did Joe Blow player get penalized".

As far as being aired on sports channels, you'll never see it on ESPN. Last I recall it was on USA and Channel 13 (small time network channel which usually runs re-runs of old shows).

I do understand the point about reality tv questions, but I think that there are legit questions about reality tv shows (rare, but still exist), and we should evaluate them as they come in.

6
  • Just to point out, the sports channels argument varies country to country. In the UK, the biggest sports broadcaster is Sky Sports, who show the lion's share of WWE.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 13:09
  • But the majority of your comments have been targeting american television.
    – DustinDavis
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 18:15
  • That was unintentional. I mentioned WWE and NBC Football - which are both broadcsat in the UK by Sky Sports.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 26, 2014 at 18:16
  • 2
    there are dialogues, scripts, rehearsals, confrontation. Most importantly they dont wrestle its a free style fight with safe moves done by experts. All this is done to amaze people.
    – paul
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 4:41
  • Good point @Paul. There are also well known character traits such as the baby face (good guy) and the heel (bad guy). You dont get these in normal sports like ufc.
    – DustinDavis
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 5:55
  • @DustinDavis, True. So how can we come to conclusion(close this) of this debate opened here.
    – paul
    Commented Nov 30, 2014 at 10:42
1

It should not be allowed.

Why?

  • Because its sports even said by Andrew Martin.

  • If we allow this then we also will allow all sports event question which got telecast. Like Cricket, Football/Soccer, Kushti, kabaddi, F1 racing, Golf etc etc, Major sports even like Olympics, Common wealth games, Asian games etc etc.

  • They belongs more to Sports.SE then here .

Note: We already covering a big ground, why to unnecessary cover the remaining too just to get more question. We need to set saturation level. We are not sports expert in here, this will only bring unanswered question only.

4
  • I'd like to point out that there are only 3 questions on Sports SE and two are duplicate and 1 is not directly related (only mentions wwe). The one related question has a great comment, "Because of what the "E" in WWE stands for"
    – DustinDavis
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:37
  • 1
    Actually I just had a thought, maybe this same question should be posed to the Sports meta and see what they say. If they agreed wwe would be a fit over there, then I'd agree they would be off topic here.
    – DustinDavis
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:38
  • 1
    @DustinDavis: I love this. I'm going to do it right now
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:42
  • 2
    @DustinDavis: I've posted the link in the comments under the question.
    – Andrew Martin
    Commented Nov 25, 2014 at 17:50

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .