Why do wrestling fans throw streamers (and other things) at the ring?

This is the script for my Youtube video about this topic. To view the video version click here: https://youtu.be/hBai2Wt1tWI

At WCW's Bash at the Beach in 1996, Hulk Hogan joined the New World Order, along with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash. This is undoubtedly one of the most famous turns in wrestling history, partly due to the wrestlers themselves, but also in part because of the crowd throwing rubbish at the ring,  making the visual of Hogan turning to the dark side even more striking. There are other famous moments similar to this, such as Terry Funk asking for a chair to be thrown from the crowd, only to receive what looked like hundreds of chairs hurtling towards the ring. There are times however, where the fans throwing things at the ring can actually be a good thing. In Lucha Libre, it is tradition that if the fans are impressed enough after a match, they will throw money into the ring to be shared between the wrestlers backstage, a custom that can sometimes be seen when Luchadores compete in the US. There is another way that fans show their respect not for a match, but for the wrestlers themselves, and thats by throwing paper streamers into the ring, creating a stunning visual.

The long held tradition of fans throwing streamers at wrestlers during their entrance doesn't seem as common as it used to be these days, but for a long time it was seen as a sign of respect towards the wrestlers. While many fans will remember seeing this in the early years of Ring of Honor, it actually began in Japan. For full disclosure I can't confirm how true this is, but it's the only explanation I was able to find from multiple sources as to how the throwing of streamers began. New Japan and All Japan as we known them today were formed when Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba both left Japan Pro Wrestling Association, also known as JWA, to form their own companies. JWA would last less than a year after this, but it had been a major promotion, even having primetime television, with one of its sponsors being Mitsubishi Electric. Legend has it that the company wanted as part of their sponsorship to prove the power of their vacuum cleaners by encouraging fans to throw streamers at the wrestlers so that they could be vacuumed up, thus advertising the product. Over time this developed into fans to throw the streamers at their favourite wrestlers as a sign of respect. Streamers would be banned in New Japan for many years, but its rival All Japan would continue to welcome the tradition.

The first time I'm aware of US audiences doing this was at ECW's first pay per view event Barely Legal in April 1997. That card included a match featuring six wrestlers from the Michinoku Pro promotion, including future WWF light heavyweight champion Taka Michinoku. Given that Ring of Honor was essentially a spiritual successor to ECW with former ECW employee Gabe Sapolsky being its booker in the early years, it makes sense that this tradition would be adopted by ROH. Paul Heyman has in the past gone on record saying that had ECW lasted longer than it did, seeing the way wrestling was changing his plan was to gradually lessen the focus on Hardcore and emphasise the quality in ring wrestling, which was essentially matches the mission statement of early Ring of Honor. Some of the greatest moments of early ROH would be topped by the fans throwing streamers. When CM Punk left the promotion on August 13th 2005, he stepped into the ring already in tears. He knelt down in the middle of the ring and a mass of streamers soon covered him as the song Night Train be the Bouncing Souls played, a song about leaving your past behind you. It truly made for an emotional moment.

Another similar occasion would occur later that year when Japanese legend Kenta Kobashi would make a special appearance to wrestle Samoa Joe. Kobashi was said to have assumed that most of the New York fans wouldn't who he was, but when he was greeted with a heroes welcome including streamers, he soon realised how beloved he was by fans, many of whom making sure to throws streamers only in purple and black, the colours of Kobasi's ring gear.  ROH would also invert this practice using on of their most hated villains, Jimmy Rave. Instead of throwing streamers at him, the fans would bring toilet paper to show their disrespect. Ever the heel, Rave and his manager Prince Nana would throw the toilet paper back at the fans, leading to several minutes of chaos while the ring crew desperately tried to clear ringside.

I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to tell this story again so I'll do it here. Jimmy Rave once wrestled at a promotion not far from me known as One Pro Wrestling. Their main venue was and still is today the Doncaster Dome leisure centre, and across the road from it was an Asda, which is the exact same thing as as Walmart for my mostly American viewers. Anyway, the story goes that the fine staff at that Asda had no idea why on this particular day they were selling far more toilet paper than they usually would, and the vast majority of it ended up in the 1PW ring, with one fan just lobbing an entire multi pack at him, with Jimmy to his credit catching it and immediately throwing it back at the crowd.