Trumping the Fans
I’ve always considered it kind of a privilege that wrestling fans get to sit so close to the wrestling ring when watching it live. Granted, they have to pay hundreds of dollars to be at ringside, but still… Speaking as someone who doesn’t like to be within three feet of strangers on the bus, the way that wrestlers are willing to walk next to/ perform next to/ jump on all the fans is mind boggling to me. So I’m a little worried that we’ll lose that in the wake of the latest string of barricade jumping fans, who get as close as they can to a wrestler or a ring in order to… what? Make a name for themselves?
I’d like to think that sentencing the offending fans to jail time will help the situation, but in an interview with The Wrestling Mayhem Show, Oscar Ramirez (the guy who jumped in the ring at Night of Champions) said “It is just a test to see how far I would go or what lengths I would go to for the WWE Universe.“ It doesn’t really sound to me like a three days in jail (reduced from ten days) would really deter someone like him from doing it in the future.