5 Things in Pro Wrestling That Need to Go Away #5 by The Russ

#5) The “WHAT?” chant

There have been two major psychological constants in wrestling for the past decade.

One constant is that anyone will shout “WHOO!” whenever a guy chops somebody. It doesn't matter that Ric Flair is on his third retirement now and paying Dixie's money to his fourth ex-wife. It doesn't matter if the guy delivering the chop is the Heavyweight Champ working in front of millions at Wrestlemania or Jobber #3 under a hood jerking the curtain for the local indy in front of 53 people.

The Pavlovian response of wrestling fans to “chop” is “WHOO!” just like Missy Hyatt's Pavlovian response to the word "man" is asking herself, “Have I ever had sex with him?”


Maybe the “WHOO!” is a sign of respect for Flair, or maybe it’s just a collective memory we have as fans that Flair was the guy who made the knife-edge chop famous. Maybe we’re all engaged in a crowd mentality that everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t we? Still, most fans young or old can trace that chant back to its origin.


However, if you're not legally able to drive, do you remember how “WHAT?” started? Here's a bit of history if you don't know or remember:

So, we still remember a moronic catchphrase from a guy who hasn't regularly wrestled in 10 years and came up with that catchphrase in the most botched money-making angle in history. And now, we're still stuck with it. From a few months ago:

Okay, so the “WHAT?” chant makes some sense here because we’ve got two heels who are trying to get heat, and the crowd is feeding off that heat in return and trying to piss off the heels. But let’s fast-forward to last month, and the crowd either seems unsure of whether or not R-Truth is supposed to be a babyface or R-Truth isn’t getting the reaction he’s expecting and is going along with the chant just to get any heat he can get.

Dude, if you’re turning babyface, you should not be encouraging the chant. End of story.
And it’s not just WWE workers that have to deal with it. Check out this TNA crowd from the UK a couple of weeks ago:

I mean, I know half of TNA’s roster is WWE retreads, but let’s not confuse the two, okay?

“WHAT?” is just a tired old cliche that fans insist on trotting out there for guys who can’t work the mic without pausing ever 7 seconds or can’t remember their lines. Most of the veterans have figured out how to work around the chants by keeping their pauses short and timing their pauses for getting heat and not just dead air. When was the last time you heard the crowd pulling that on Triple H?

This is the only time that “WHAT?” was ever cool and didn’t deserve to get put down like Old Yeller:

Clever.