Well, pro wrestling in it's current form is complete crap. Just crap. Wrestling lost it's way about 15 years ago after WWE swallowed up WCW. There's so much history here it's upsetting.
WWE (or WWF as it was known until the Worldwide Wildlife Fund sued in the late 90s) had been around since the 80's? It was just as bunch of guys who could double as your fat uncle putting on a show with pretty shitty moves. Somehow they got into the business of theming wrestlers. This guy is a policeman, this guy is a millionaire, this guy is the undead, this guy is a tough guy, this guy is a love maker. And on and off the ring, these guys lived up to their character. When i was a kid watching this stuff, wow, i believed the undertaker was undead. I believed the bossman was police, i believed val venus was a love maker. The entire show was for kids. If you go back and watch some early 90s WWE, just look at the faces of kids in the crowd. Stun, shock, fear, etc. The wrestlers responded to chants, one finisher was enough... when the guy setup for a finisher it was like oh shit it's over, they had interviews, match promos. They made wrestling into Jerry Springer essentially.
Kids grow up of course, which started the phase out of characters and into what is known as the attitude era (characters being assholes and fighting against the ownership). This was caused by the huge competition created by WCW. WCW was an absolute boon for wrestling because of COMPETITION! WWE actually lost in ratings a few times to WCW on Monday night. Sadly, WCW overplayed it's hand and it's success got to it's head. They never developed any talent besides Goldberg. All talent was bought from WWE, and the only quality story they created was the NWO, which they played out way too hard. You can watch videos of wrestlers honestly cussing out management on TV. Not scripted. Ted Turner's project died allowing WWE to buy it up, which was a nice bump for a little bit. WWE vs WCW. But it died out pretty fast.
From there WWE has just been having a slow painful death caused by a multitude of things...
1) Poor treatment of it's talent regarding health. So many events, full year job with no breaks.
2) Moving women from being sex objects on the side of the ring to being actual wrestlers with main events at PPV's. Nobody wants to see women's wrestling FFS!
3) Relying on nostalgia, pretty much admitting their talent pool is shit. When they roll out 65 yo Jimmy Snuka and 65 yo Roddy Piper at Royal Rumble you know they are drawing straws.
4) Breaking up successful gimmicks. The broke up so many groups like The Shield who had quality gimmicks.
5) Too many fucking events. It used to be just Sunday Superstars and a bunch of house events. WWE changed everything with Monday Night Raw. I remember flipping between Raw and MNF for my home team. Decisions decisions. Then they added a Thursday show, this show, that show. It got so bad that they split the talent between shows and made a gimmick of Raw vs Smackdown. So dumb.
6) Too many ppvs. It had always been 4 ppvs, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, Royal Rumble and WrestleMania (one per season). Then they started to add so many f'in PPVs that you lost track.
7) Too many belts thanks to WCW. It used to be just 3 belts. Champion, intercontinental champion (i.e. the no. 2 ranked belt) and tag team champs. When they added WCW they added belts and God knows how to track them.
8) Finishers ain't finishers any more. It takes f'in 5 finishers to finish a guy. It's so dumb. It completely removed the buildup to the ending act. Instead of it being "oh shit, it's over" it's now "ok how many times do we have to run through this shit to get to the end?"
I've tried to get back into it but the show is just so dumb and i can't stand how much they feature women's wrestling. It's like watching kids wrestle...zzzzzz. When i watch a match now, all i see is how the wrestlers help each other out to do a move. Pile driver? Yeah the guy taking the driver is holding the driving guy's thighs so he can hold his weight. Lifting a guy? The guy getting lifted is holding on to give support. Guy jumping off the top rope? The guy on the floor moves to be in the correct location to avoid injury. It's all so egregious that it ruins the enjoyment of the show. Wrestling from yesteryear didn't involve so much death defying crap that required excessive setups by both wrestlers.
Watch AEW. Comes on TNT. Has for two years now.
AEW is good. Haven't watched in 20yrs til AEW
Thanks for the response.
What other gimmicks dis tou enjoy?
Ppvs?
D-Gen X & Stone Cold characters vs management.
Lawler vs Doink & mini doinks.
Yokozuna was un-power-slammable, just made to be a beast who could not be beat.
Mountee vs Big Boss Man
Million Dollar Man + IRS + Virgil...lol.
The popular urban legend when we were growing up was that George the Animal Steel ( the troglodyte retard who would chew in the turnbuckle insulation) was a principal of a school. lol
Well he was. he has a masters in education
Summerslam 2000, first table (or second, don't remember) table, ladders and chairs match. It may be fake, but those fools were truly risking their lives.
2) Moving women from being sex objects on the side of the ring to being actual wrestlers with main events at PPV's. Nobody wants to see women's wrestling FFS!
This is where pro wrestling missed a trick.
for a teen boy, seeing two good looking women wrestling each other, is akin to a live sex show. ECW in the 90's picked up on this by giving the ex porn star Jasmin St Clair a contract to work shows. When she turned up to the shows all the boys in the crowd started shouting "SUCK MY COCK!" in unison. Really nutty stuff.
The closest WWE got to this was with the beautiful Trish Stratus. Had posters of her on my wall.
Then we get to Rob Black's attempt with XPW. Black used to get his porn girls to turn up at shows to wrestle some times.
The joy of the older 90's pro wrestling was that it was politically incorrect. Women were girly girls in skimpy outfits. It was escapism.
In terms of the wresting a good way to see it is like a version of Judo Randori practice. There is an art & a form to it. A good example is the old tapes of Kurt Angle "working" Chris Benoit. Their submission matches in the WWE PPV's are still some of the best technical wrestling outside of the MMA or Olympic stuff.
Final thought; we need more big boobs in pro wrestling.
If they (guys in charge, Vince) want to fix wrestling they need to do lots of things, the biggest of which (1 in the list) will never happen because they will get their pants sued off in court for discrimination:
1) Eliminate women's wrestling. It's uninteresting, it's boring, it's like watching kids fight. Any aficionado or columnist who talks about women's division in positive light is a male feminist. yuck.
2) put women back on the sideline in sexy clothing
3) go back to 4 ppv's
4) go back to ONE finisher only...jfc!
5) do not bring back any nostalgia wrestlers. I'm sure they are planning an undertaker rumble appearance. you heard it here first. WWE - just don't. Please.
6) Three belts, that's it. Championship, Tag team championship, Intercontinental championship.
7) I would start tracking and providing wrestlers records. Hell, what I'd do is start having a rating system like chess. It would be quite dramatic to see them respond to the big video screen adjusting their rating up or down. Then fans would know how close someone really is to challenging for the championship, not a frequent guessing game.
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