Popular Pro Wrestling Website Changes Policy To Reduce Tribalism

AEW and WWE fans are quite vocal about their favorite company. Those fans who hate both AEW and WWE are also a rare, and passionate, breed. Now, one of the internet wrestling community’s best online databases is doing something to help that tension.

Cage Match has a lot of fans who frequent the site, discussing pro wrestling and debating at the same time. Some of those conversations can get a bit heated, and the popular website has now changed their policy to help reduce some of the problem.

Cage Match is used by many fans for different reasons, and Ringside News even uses it for our fact checking if we ever need a question answered about any match, because their database is quite extensive. It seems that they will delay things a bit now, in an effort to help reduce tribalism on the site.

“Hello everyone!

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Today is the 21st anniversary of CAGEMATCH. We are still here after 22 years, still independent and still free to use without advertisements. But, the unfortunate reality is that it is getting harder and harder each week to stay ahead of the rampant trolling and tribalism and one-dimensional fanatism that has plagued the wrestling internet for some time now. It sucks the fun out of doing this sometimes. The online promotion wars have reached another zenith this past weekend with multiple WWE and AEW shows that saw the trolls of either side come out from under their bridges and scream at each other and us for apparently favouring one side over the other. We do not, but any discussion or argument of this point is moot: Those of you who have a brain and have visited us for a while know this already. The others will never be convinced, as they have already made up their mind. But this is not what this post is about.

This post is about the following: In order to get the rampant tribalism and reactionism after wrestling events under somewhat of a control, the following rule is now in effect in a public beta stage:

Ratings for events and matches are now possible at the earliest at noon (12pm or 12:00) of the following day. The common timezone is Central European Time as this is easier for us to track on a technical level. The reference date is either the broadcast date or (if the event was not broadcast) the date of the event itself, whichever is later.

Example:
AEW Dynamite tonight will have the broadcast and event date of 31.05.2023. Therefore the earliest point in time where we allow ratings will be 01.06.2023 noon (12pm / 12:00) CET.
Comments will still be allowed for the show itself, but not for the matches (mostly for technical reasons) during the moratorium.

Disclaimer:
I fully expect this to result in a dip in overall number of ratings, as traditionally the time directly after a show leads to the most ratings. What I do hope to accomplish here is an improvement in overall quality of the ratings (and comments) as well as a massive reduction in reactionary ratings (“oh my gawd, that was the best/worst thing ever”) and also a reduction of tribalism. At the very least it will give us, the administrators of the site, time to actually be awake to react to early ratings — instead of having to wake up to Reddit and Twitter threads about “CAGEMATCH going insane” because obvious troll ratings haven’t been deleted at 4 am CET directly after a show.

As mentioned above, this is a beta stage. Or trial phase, if you will. Let’s see how it works out. If it does not have the desired effect or all of you are 100% against it or there are compelling arguments against it, we will revert this change. But let’s see. I hope it will work out and reduce tribalism and reactionism, because it’s degrading the quality and fun for all of us. And I do wish to keep this website alive for another 22 years at least while also having fun doing so, so let’s just see what happens, alright?

They also provided an update on the matter to say, “I am aware that some people were able to rate the AEW Dynamite show despite the moratorium. I forgot to force a browser cache update for some stuff and will fix it now. The already given ratings will be removed.”

The whole message also ended with, “Thanks for reading. Have fun in the cage, inmates!” After all, pro wrestling is supposed to be fun.

We will have to see if this squelches any tribalism in professional wrestling, but it’s not likely. Fans are passionate about their favorite company and pro wrestlers, and they will always find a way to show their favoritism.

What’s your take on this situation with tribalism in pro wrestling? Sound off in the comments!