Soap opera's exactly the right comparison, especially the really long-running soaps. Same kind of weird surprises, reversals, storylines and callbacks and chara

Soap opera's exactly the right comparison, especially the really long-running soaps. Same kind of weird surprises, reversals, storylines and callbacks and characters spanning literal decades, all that stuff. Shit, this last Wrestlemania featured a wrestler (who's the son of another wrestler) involved with a plot line elements of which date back to when he was six years old, and that kind of thing's somewhat common wrestling. Lots of the drama and conflicts and stories could easily be lifted and put in an actual soap opera with minimal modification. It's a soap opera with tons of crazy, live stunts.