Former WWE Champion and Knox County mayor Glen “Kane” Jacobs discussed the negative stigma associated with wrestling on Busted Open Radio. Here is what he had to say:
“I don’t know. I really think the popularity of wrestling, especially WWE of course, during the Attitude era got so many people involved as fans. And now these people grew up and are in decision-making positions. And I think that helps tremendously. You look at Ric Flair right now, he’s made this enormous comeback in pop culture. Ric wrestled back in the ’80s and ’90s, and now all of a sudden you see all these professional athletes and they’re all doing Flair’s schtick. Because they watched him when they were kids, and now they’ve grown up and they’re paying homage to him. I think that’s more of it, really. I think that it’s also WWE being more mainstream entertainment. For years, of course, professional wrestling was confined to National Guard armories and high school gyms. Now, since WWE is a global company and so large, it goes so many places and has enormous events, I think that helps as well. So hopefully we have, at least to some extent, broken the stigma. I mean, people are always gonna say stuff, of course. But I think that people for the most part realize now that ‘Hey, they’re entertainers and they’re pretty good entertainers, too.’”
H/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.
