What does wrestling need to do (for you)?

[DCW]

I dip in/out of WWE when I hear of something interesting happening. The Cody run to Mania (which was very well done) was the last time I slightly kept up with the weekly shows. The presentation and overall feel of the show has definitely improved since H got the top job. Just I feel no emotional connection to it anymore, it feels like a behemoth that doesn't need me to be watching. But I'll happily watch old episodes of Heat or Velocity from 2001 or the satellite feeds that appear from around that era to see who pops up.

I've tried to get into AEW, but I find the whole promotion feels cold and disorganized and the commentary and general presentation annoy me a bit. The having matches for no particular reason and the 10,000 championships knocking about makes it seem like the dying days of the invasion angle, where every odd and sod was a champion which really meant nobody was a champion. It's mad that TK can't see this, but its his show/money I suppose. I was a big Bryan fan in WWE, but AEW even managed to drop the ball with him a bit, until the recent retirement winding down run. Should have been front and center of most of their telly, rather than knocking about with dull Claudio in the stable whose leader legged back to WWE fairly sharpish.

To sum up, I'm a weirdo living in the past & I admire all ye who have the energy to keep up with the amount of wrestling programming thrown out every week!

[RIDDUM_N_STYLE]

Even after 35 years of watching wrestling, my interest levels have never been higher, I’m super pumped to be going to my first WWE show in 5 years on Monday but there are areas both companies can be improved 

WWE - staging for one, the only time we see a slight variation for main roster shows is when they use the scaled down set up for European PLE weekends or for stadium shows otherwise Raw and SD have the same massive screen set up. NXT have at least tried something different like on last nights show or the Battleground event

Commentary is fine, Cole has been rejuvenated since the Old Perv pissed off, Tessitore has been a massive breath of fresh air, bringing both a fan view and a professional perspective and Vic is long due a promotion back to main shows as he did a great job with Lawler for a brief time on Raw. Graves did a decent job as PBP but is definitely better suited to colour as is Wade but Booker can be both equally hilarious and annoying at times and as for Pat, he definitely got worse during his last run, hopefully he tones it down a bit when he returns for the Netflix era. Don’t have any issues with the 3 ring announcers

AEW - commentary, love the dynamic between Taz, Tony and Excalibur but, even after 5/6 years I still can’t take to Ex as a PBP, he’s too much like the Micro Machine guy when trying to promote instead of letting things breath

The best comms pairing is still Riccaboni and Caprice on ROH and the former blends in when needed with Tony on Collision from what clips I’ve seen

As Rick said above they need to dial it back on the titles, there’s zero need to have ROH or NJPW titles defended on AEW programming 

 

[HarmonicGenerator]

WWE - in the late 2010s, it was NXT I was interested in, but that dwindled in 2019/early 2020 (it was the never ending Adam Cole/Kyle O’Reilly 2 out of 3 falls which was the final straw for me on that one). Main roster and the shows’ presentation just wasn’t for me - everyone wrestling the same, all those camera cuts… Got rid of the Network in the early days of the pandemic and haven’t missed it. I’ll check in on the occasional big show, keep up with the results, and that’s fine for me at the moment.

This year, I watched the Rumble because it’s the Rumble, WrestleMania because it’s WrestleMania, Summerslam because I wanted to see this vastly improved product everyone was talking about on here (it still wasn’t for me, but definitely fewer camera cuts), and the Punk/Drew cell match.

It might change with the Netflix deal. Depends if the shows are downloadable so I can stick them on on the train.

AEW - I’ve been with them since the beginning, I still am, I still watch every show, but it feels cold at the moment. There’s glimmers of how exciting and great it could be, but it’s just glimmers right now. The roster’s oversized, too many meaningless belts, Collision feeling like ROH overrun, three shows feeling like homework, all these things people have mentioned - but mainly for me it’s momentum, and how they don’t really have much. Especially after All In, which I enjoyed so much this year and wasn’t that long ago, that momentum was right there for the  taking and it’s just kind of fizzled instead. I want it to grab my full attention, I want something for next week to look forward to. They can turn it around, but it’s not there right now. I’ll still keep watching, it’s still my favourite of the two companies, but I’m not paying for Wrestledream and won’t be that fussed if I don’t see it.

Edited October 10, 2024 by HarmonicGenerator

[air_raid]

I’m incredibly jaded so I just want all companies to stop doing things that I think are shit. Things obviously filmed with cooperation between the men supposed to be fighting (you know, the “there wasn’t a cameraman there a minute ago” POV and that kind of stuff), dramatic SEQUENCES! instead of just one really good counter, people just popping up from piledrivers in the middle of those SEQUENCES! etc, and Natalya.

[LaGoosh]

For me the main two things are:

1) the wrestling itself needs to be engaging performers putting on high quality matches. Without that I can't get into it. There's a pervasive view these days (I think as a result of 10-15 years of WWE programming) that is against "matches for matches sake" or that matches need a story going in or reason to happen. 

To me, I believe this opinion misses what wrestling really is about and is a joyless way to approach it. Like the wrestling itself is just a means to an end to whatever story beat comes next. Every match has a story and reason to exist. Wrestling is a sport and the wrestlers are fighting each match for victory, the winner's purse, personal glory and to improve their standing so they can get Championship gold.

Yes, the big character driven stories with angles, promos, twists and turns are essential to wrestling but really everything should be in service to the matches and the story should primarily be told within the match itself. The struggle, the strategy, tactics and behaviour of the wrestlers in the battle for victory is what makes wrestling so fucking great. 

When a wrestling company loses sight of that  core tenant and puts out poor quality wrestling then I'm out. Which is one of the (many) reasons I don't watch WWE anymore.

2) this one might sound a bit weird. Being a booker or on a wrestling creative team is basically my dream job. When I daydream I'm usually doing fantasy booking. I have Notes on my phone of storylines, cards etc that I fantasy book when I'm out and about. I reckon I'd be pretty good at it (hire me, Tony Khan!). I often re-book a show while I'm watching it. So for me, I need to be engaged enough with what I'm watching (good or bad) to get me daydreaming and fantasy booking. If I don't care about what I'm watching I won't fantasy book anything and that's when I know I should turn it off.

[Supremo]

I’ve never enjoyed pro-wrestling more. AEW breaking the monopoly and Vince fucking off feels like in, “The Wizard of Oz,” where everything switched from black and white into colour.

Those twenty plus years of watching just because I watched it was like an abusive relationship. To now be free of that abuse, it almost feels petty complaining about anything. We have two mainstream products earnestly trying to entertain. It’s a dream come true. Plus, imagine how hard it must be to book pro-wrestling. To fill all that TV time. To manage and placate a roster of absolute nutters who think the government control the weather.

However, here’s a handful of things I thought of whilst doing the school run.

In AEW, the main one if to Make Collision Great Again. It’s as depressing as it was predictable. Collision has essentially become a two-hour Rampage. A bunch of wrestlers doing some wrestling matches. You can skip it for months and feel like you’ve missed nothing. There’s no excuse, either. WWE manage to put out two A-shows a week. So did AEW, at the start.

Do some hot angles and promos. Have canonical developments. Reward me for watching. It’s 2024. Matches - even good matches - isn’t enough.

Another one is to employ someone to sit in on all production meetings, remind them that pro-wrestling is a never-ending medium and constantly ask, “And then what, Tony?”

Tony Khan may be past his best, but deep down he’s a great booker. He’s booked some of my favourite storylines and characters of all time. The problem is that he never thinks beyond the big crescendo. Hangman beats Kenny. Wardlow beats MJF, earning an AEW contract. Mariah May murders Toni Storm. Team Elite vs. Team AEW Blood and Guts match. And then every single time it hits a brick wall, everything falls off a cliff and he has zero plans for what to do afterwards. I’m not one of those morons suggesting he hires fucking Cornette, Russo or Bischoff - now that Tony’s secured the bag he’s objectively the second most successful booker in the history of North America, but he desperately needs a long-term consultant who forces him to think beyond the big destination.

In WWE, I want Joe Tessitore commentating all the shows. Fresh, enthusiastic, authentic, warm, friendly voice like your favourite neighbour. Already got great chemistry with Wade. None of that Michael Cole stink. He’s the best. 

Also, of course, push the cruiserweights.

[tiger_rick]

17 hours ago, FUM said:

I have to disagree on the current presentation of WWE in the OP. I think it’s a criticism you could have seen levelled a few years ago but right now they are nailing a lot of the presentation for me. They have a way of making everything seem big time, a lot more of the backstage acting makes sense and it’s probably what keeps me more interested. One aspect of presentation that is genuinely a huge reason I watch current WWE over AEW is the crowd, how they show it off and light it up.

I’m also not going to pretend I’m solely in wrestling for wrestling - quite frankly I find there is too much actual wrestling, especially in AEW, and a show with a few 8-10 minute matches is always going to be my go to over one with a few 20-25 minute matches. WWE hasn’t quite nailed that yet either but I feel they are closer to it than AEW. NWA were doing it really well when they first launched Powerrr.

I agree on the big time feel. That's always been part of why I loved the WWF and apart from ECW, because it felt cool and dirty, I've rarely enjoyed pro-wrestling that doesn't feel big time. I tried to be specific but my issue is what they present their product as rather than their generally brilliant production. A small example but I was watching through 1991 and there's a podium interview where Sid comes out and stands with his back to the camera facing Hogan, Warrior and Gene. The switch to a camera looking up at Sid between Hogan and Warrior because that's what they did. They filmed a wrestling show. Now, they make a TV show about wrestling and they plan everything, where people stand, where people face, where they do spots, etc. A small thing but it's what stops it feeling like it used to. I don't think it would be that hard to get back into it.

Agree with you generally on matches. I can take or leave most of them. I have matches I love but they're mostly in the past before they all started to feel the same. Give me a great promo or a video package any day. I do think AEW get unduly criticised for a lot of theirs though. Matches are rarely there for the sake of it. They almost always lead somewhere. For me though, that normally just means I ignore most of it and wait for the interference or finish and see where that's leading.

16 hours ago, FLips said:

Yes it's great that they have Ricochet and Will Ospreay and Danielson and they can put on a good match, but I prefer heel Christian, Hangman Page, Eddie Kingston and others who get ahead on just having a good character, good promo and selling me the matches.

I think Ospreay and Danielson have been really good promos for the most part. I'm with you though. I'd watch Eddie talk over ricochet wrestling every minute of every day!

14 hours ago, The Gaffer said:

I have nothing to complain about though. I'm catered for. The business is great right now.

Good for you. Genuinely, that's nice to read. They're all cunts you know? (I'm kidding.)

11 hours ago, DCW said:

To sum up, I'm a weirdo living in the past 

Don't apologise, we're the smartest ones. The past was great.

[tiger_rick]

15 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Also, of course, push the cruiserweights.

WWE did a cruiserweight show, 205 live, because that was the weight limit. I think back in the day, it might have been 215 or 230 for the Light Heavyweight/Cruiserweight divisions. Last week, AEW announced Bryan Danielson, World Champion, at 197lbs. WTF would a Cruiserweight be now?

[RedTwoster]

9 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

WWE did a cruiserweight show, 205 live, because that was the weight limit. I think back in the day, it might have been 215 or 230 for the Light Heavyweight/Cruiserweight divisions. Last week, AEW announced Bryan Danielson, World Champion, at 197lbs. WTF would a Cruiserweight be now?

These days, if either company was to launch a division based around weight, I think they’d have to take the opposite approach and make it a super heavyweight division. And I wouldn’t be against that, it would be an interesting experiment if nothing else. 

[BomberPat]

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

1) the wrestling itself needs to be engaging performers putting on high quality matches. Without that I can't get into it. There's a pervasive view these days (I think as a result of 10-15 years of WWE programming) that is against "matches for matches sake" or that matches need a story going in or reason to happen. 

To me, I believe this opinion misses what wrestling really is about and is a joyless way to approach it. Like the wrestling itself is just a means to an end to whatever story beat comes next. Every match has a story and reason to exist. Wrestling is a sport and the wrestlers are fighting each match for victory, the winner's purse, personal glory and to improve their standing so they can get Championship gold.

I think the point about 10-15 years of WWE programming is at the core of this; WWE have spent that time teaching their audience that wrestling is just a means to an end.

One of my biggest bugbears about WWE, which I forgot to mention - and maybe this is changing now under Triple H - is that their heels don't cheat unless it's the finish, and even then, you're just as likely to see a babyface cheat as a heel, with Michael Cole or Corey Graves screaming about "turnabout is fair play!". There's always been an element of that in WWF babyfaces - Hogan doing back rakes, throwing punches, and pulling Warrior's hair to try and break a bearhug - but there's no real heat if the baddies aren't behaving like baddies; pulling hair, poking eyes, getting in cheapshots behind the referee's back, all that stuff. 

On top of that, wrestlers in WWE are - or at least were - discouraged from selling outside of matches. Vince's justification was that audiences pay to see WWE Superstars™ at their best, so wrestlers shouldn't be taped up or bandaged from a previous match, shouldn't still be limping from an injury they suffered earlier in the week or even earlier on the same show. And then there's that one of the hallmarks of "WWE Style" is every wrestler having a distinct and unique finisher - and that's so taken for granted in wrestling now that nobody thinks anything of it, but I don't particularly like finisher psychology - and (with the exception of "someone runs in and causes a distraction for a roll-up" or a big stunt bump in a gimmick match) finishers are the only thing that ends matches. It all adds up to the actual wrestling having no consequence - why care about 95% of a match when chances are none of it is going to inform the finish, and you have no reason to believe that anything before someone hits a finisher is going to end the match? WWE TV has been actively telling us for years that we don't need to bother.

Often, it's worse. We all remember John Cena "fine speech!" promos, where he loses to a heel, only to cut a promo the following night about how it didn't really count, and the heel has to beat him again for it to matter. I mentioned the RAW where Shane McMahon returned in my first post in this thread, and I had to look that up to remind me when it was and what happened - he fought The Undertaker at Wrestlemania, in a match where if Shane won, he would be granted control of RAW. Shane won, and Vince gave him control of RAW anyway. So why ever get invested in a match when none of it matters? I know this is the WWE of several years ago and they're moving away from their worst instincts in this respect, but it's informed a generation as to how wrestling works.

 

I think a lot of the "Where's The Story?" criticism of AEW matches is completely disingenuous, but for the minority that really mean it, I do have some sympathy, because WWE have taught them that "Story" and "Wrestling Match" are two distinct and completely separate elements of the same show. The idea that a story can be told through wrestling just isn't how WWE really operate; at best, wrestling matches are punctuation marks in the story. 

But you're absolutely right that every match has a story. That story is that there are two professional fighters who both want to win a wrestling match. Everything on top of that is an added extra. And good wrestlers, and good wrestling, is able to expand on that story within the match, not telling the story through video packages, duelling promos, and backstage skits. All of that is window dressing - often very valuable window dressing, but it's not the heart of the thing. I haven't seen the Drew McIntyre/CM Punk Hell In A Cell match, but all the praise I've seen of it suggests that it worked because they wrestled in a way that befitted the story they were telling, and got that point across through their wrestling. I don't want to downplay how good they are, or how good that match might have been, but WWE was so bad for so long, and so wrongheaded in how it presented wrestling, that absolutely basic Wrestling 101 decision-making is being treated as revolutionary. The Rock bloodying up Cody Rhodes was greeted with adulation as an amazing, groundbreaking moment - how far can WWE have strayed that "heel beats up babyface backstage and makes them bleed right before a big PPV match" (and a Rhodes at that!) was seen as something fresh and exciting, rather than entry-level how this shit works?

[Supremo]

Bin off the International, TNT and Continental Titles, then introduce the AEW Meat Championship, for all the hosses to fight over, and the AEW Flippin’ Heck Championship, for all the Luchadors to have mad, state of the art spotfests.

New boom confirmed.

[Carbomb]

A small note on the presentation thing:

I've never liked WWE's all-screen entrance ways. They're too plush for my tastes. But the thing I like least is the way they're shaped, with wrestlers coming round a corner to make their entrance. Something about it feels anti-climactic; it just feels more dramatic when they walk forward through a curtain or up stairs.

I am aware that that is most likely just me, and it's not going anywhere; there are now several generations who've grown up with the current setup.

[Slapnut]

1 hour ago, tiger_rick said:

Now, they make a TV show about wrestling and they plan everything, where people stand, where people face, where they do spots, etc. A small thing but it's what stops it feeling like it used to. I don't think it would be that hard to get back into it.

For me, there’s no bigger example of this than the backstage documentaries they do about Wrestlemania and you see everybody rehearsing their entrances to the letter. I know kayfabe is dead and buried, and of course you have a choice whether or not to watch these documentaries, but when I see something rehearsed to that extent it completely sucks out any enjoyment of watching the actual entrance itself.

It wouldn’t even be so bad if the entrance didn’t look incredibly rehearsed, but to me the majority of them do. Punk and Sami come to mind as two whose entrances don't seem overly choreographed, but I can’t think of many others who don’t look like they’re making sure they hit their marks.

[tiger_rick]

12 minutes ago, Slapnut said:

For me, there’s no bigger example of this than the backstage documentaries they do about Wrestlemania and you see everybody rehearsing their entrances to the letter. I know kayfabe is dead and buried, and of course you have a choice whether or not to watch these documentaries, but when I see something rehearsed to that extent it completely sucks out any enjoyment of watching the actual entrance itself.

That line is weird these days. I'm not sure what I think of it. I don't want to go down the route of talking about the bad faith twerps on Twitter as people on here are sound. However, I saw there was a photo floating around of everyone in or around a ring chatting before Raw (or SD) and there were a bunch of people chastising whoever took and leaked it for killing the magic. The company do that themselves regularly on their own media. Seems particularly bad faith to be pretending this photo did it.

[Tim Healys Chutney Spoon]

1 hour ago, Supremo said:

Bin off the International, TNT and Continental Titles, then introduce the AEW Meat Championship, for all the hosses to fight over, and the AEW Flippin’ Heck Championship, for all the Luchadors to have mad, state of the art spotfests.

New boom confirmed.

I was thinking that maybe every 2-4 years they have a 'Ryder Cup of Wrestling' and each participating country/promotion puts up say a team of 10-12 and then they all have a singles match against an opposition country/region (maybe USA v Rest of World) and then have a selection of tag teams facing off. In the year or so build up to it you would have wrestlers wanting to win qualifying matches so they got their chance to be in the tournament. You'd have enemies potentially tagging, smaller names from random promotions being given a chance on the bigger stage, in AEWs case potentially a starting/ending of funds from people from CMLL/NJPW/RevPro/etc.

 

Could be great fun and a chance for many to showcase themselves 

Edited October 10, 2024 by Tim Healys Chutney Spoon
Spell in