but there are two parts to what i mean here.

1) it's an athletic endeavor. now, it's an athletic endeavor the way dancing or gymnastics are (less about direct competition and more about performance that stretches the physical limits of what people can do), but it's still athletic. more importantly...

2) when wrestling is doing what it does really well, it is showing a sports world where the drama is always built in. because it's scripted, you can always ensure that your storyline has the most possible drama built into it. in real sports, sometimes you'll have amazing build-up, and then you'll have a let down final moment (like this year's finals--while i enjoyed the hell out of the celtic beatdown in the clincher, the maximum dramatic effect wasn't there). in wrestling, it should never be that way.

i think one of the big mistakes the WWE makes is not making a bigger deal out of the sports side of their programming. if they had top tens and rankings and more technical breakdowns of what is happening in the ring, they could encourage people to suspend their disbelief more often and buy into the competition part of things.

and you're right--there never is quite that same thing that sports have, where you know you're watching two teams go at it with no sense of the outcome in advance. but to an audience, even though it's scripted, you're still waiting to see what's going to happen, and when it's done well, it can mimic those great moments in sports very effectively.