Your indispensable guide to a complete wrestling experience.
WORDS BY ROSS PFUND
While we await the next major title changes in the Twin Cities pro wrestling scene, DISPATCH would like to offer this guide to the most prominent and effective form of communication amongst wrestling fans: chanting.
If you’re going to a wrestling show, prep your voice for chanting. It’s inescapable. The good news is that there exists a chant to give voice to every single emotion you could experience, whether you’re mad, impressed, angry, worried, or irate. Here are some of the chants you’re most likely to encounter:
“This is awesome!” Overused but still effective, this chant is for when you feel a match is particularly exciting.
“Yes!” Originated by the legendary Bryan Danielson, the “yes” chant—accompanied by skyward-jabbing pointer fingers—is now standard use for any positive-feeling situation, whether your favorite wrestler is kicking somebody in the sternum or asking the crowd a rhetorical question.
“No!” You’d think this would be used in situations where the opposite of “Yes!” applies, but it’s mostly just for when you don’t want your favorite to tap out during a submission hold.
“Corbin sucks!” Obviously, you’ll want to insert the two-syllable name of whichever wrestler is currently irking you, but don’t overlook Corbin as a timeless fallback option. If you feel extremely insulted, you may want to go with the more personally targeted “You suck!” It’s a judgment call; listen to your feelings.
“Fight forever!” For when you want a match to continue in defiance of the boundaries of human endurance and clearly stated time limits.
“You fucked up!” Rude. This started as an edgy way to shame wrestlers who messed up a move, but these days it’s only acceptable to use when a hated villain is realizing they’re about to suffer a consequence for their misdeeds.
“You still got it!” For when you like a wrestler but inadvertently want to make them feel old, as though you were expecting them to crumble to dust upon their match’s first collar-and-elbow tie-up, but, hey, wow, they’re still alive!
“Please don’t die!” If a wrestler puts themselves in harm’s way to such a degree that you become legitimately worried for their health, this is what you’ll want to chant. Usually that means they’re climbing something unusually high, like one of those extra-tall ladders (normal ladders are well within the scope of typical wrestling danger—do not, I repeat, do not chant this during normal ladder usage) or a balcony or some other sort of rickety apparatus. It’s courteous to chant this even at wrestlers whose mortality you don’t care much about either way.