Against the grain wrestling opinions

[gmoney]

I didn't suggest he wasn't over, I said it helped cement him as an icon.

[RedTwoster]

I think this is against the grain, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd have disagreed with myself on this one just a few months ago, but I've changed my mind. 

AEW should not go head-to-head with Wrestlemania, or plan a big event designed to rival it. They should continue to build up All In, but run it at the usual time, in the States or Canada with an open and public invite to indies to piggyback onto it. Maybe they do something WWE does not and would not, by plugging some of these indie shows - or at least the ones featuring AEW talent - on Dynamite and Collision, really making the event feel like a festival of wrestling. 

According to Fightful, WWE is delaying the announcement of the Wrestlemania dates to make it harder for AEW to do something simultaneously. Let them play chicken with themselves, and hype All In - at its usual time - as being the biggest wrestling event in North America of 2027 and do everything you can to make that a reality. 

[BomberPat]

the thing about Triple H is that his best performances - against Daniel Bryan, against Ronda Rousey, and against Cactus Jack - are when he recognises that his role is to bump and sell and back off and generally be a heel, knowing he's out of his depth and can't win a fair fight. In the build to the Daniel Bryan match, he takes a bump off a baseball slide from Brie Bella that's bigger than anything he ever gave Cena or Orton! A bad wrestler is one thing, but there's nothing more frustrating than seeing the evidence that a wrestler can get it, and constantly chooses not to. Even as a semi-retired authority figure, he still had to make sure everyone knew he was the toughest, coolest, funniest guy in the room.

[garynysmon]

- I suspect this will be very against the grain, but I honestly cringe at wrestling fans who are a little too open about their fandom. From my POV it was always meant to be this pretty embarrassing hobby we had that you were cautious with who you opened up about it.

Granted there have been occasions where its been just about socially acceptable to wear wrestling t-shirts in public when people like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold etc were borderline genuine celebrities. But at this moment in time, none of your work colleagues are going to be impressed hearing about how good a wrestler they've never heard of is, or how you were up until 4am the night before watching a Pay Per View that cost £30.

 

- I cannot for the life of me understand why, in this day and age when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish due to doomscrolling, why are most wrestling matches so bloody long?

I get it, I'm not a 'wrestling' guy in terms of the in-ring stuff ever being my favourite part of a show, but surely there were aspects of the Attitude Era that were bang on and didn't have to be jettisoned en-masse? You could easily have a fast paced show, everyone being involved in some kind of storyline with a few 2-3 minute matches. In fact, it would be perfect in terms of packaging for social media.

It seems to me that while proper sports are trying to tighten up (see Cricket with the Hundred for example), American wrestling has gone in the opposite direction and hunkered down to appeal to a smaller base of hardcore fans.

But genuinely, if I was a kid now, I can't imagine that any current wrestling would appeal to me at all. 

Edited Tuesday at 06:12 PM by garynysmon

[Chili]

1 hour ago, garynysmon said:

- I suspect this will be very against the grain, but I honestly cringe at wrestling fans who are a little too open about their fandom. From my POV it was always meant to be this pretty embarrassing hobby we had that you were cautious with who you opened up about it.

Granted there have been occasions where its been just about socially acceptable to wear wrestling t-shirts in public when people like Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold etc were borderline genuine celebrities. But at this moment in time, none of your work colleagues are going to be impressed hearing about how good a wrestler they've never heard of is, or how you were up until 4am the night before watching a Pay Per View that cost £30.

 

- I cannot for the life of me understand why, in this day and age when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish due to doomscrolling, why are most wrestling matches so bloody long?

I get it, I'm not a 'wrestling' guy in terms of the in-ring stuff ever being my favourite part of a show, but surely there were aspects of the Attitude Era that were bang on and didn't have to be jettisoned en-masse? You could easily have a fast paced show, everyone being involved in some kind of storyline with a few 2-3 minute matches. In fact, it would be perfect in terms of packaging for social media.

It seems to me that while proper sports are trying to tighten up (see Cricket with the Hundred for example), American wrestling has gone in the opposite direction and hunkered down to appeal to a smaller base of hardcore fans.

But genuinely, if I was a kid now, I can't imagine that any current wrestling would appeal to me at all. 

People walking round replica belts.

[Lorne Malvo]

2 minutes ago, Chili said:

People walking round replica belts.

You bloody have to with the size of some of them!

[CavemanLynn]

2 hours ago, garynysmon said:

- I cannot for the life of me understand why, in this day and age when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish due to doomscrolling, why are most wrestling matches so bloody long?

I'd have said this, until I realised most of my favourite matches were 30+ minutes but far less happened. Sure, my faves are guys like Bret, Steamboat and Windham, and there's a lot to be said for being swept away by rabid crowds who really give a shit, but still, they capture my attention for ages without exhausting me. The new guys at the top definitely know to stop, let a moment breath, then speed up again, but after 15 minutes, I just feel kind of burned out and bored.

[LaGoosh]

11 hours ago, garynysmon said:

 But at this moment in time, none of your work colleagues are going to be impressed hearing about how good a wrestler they've never heard of is

 

- I cannot for the life of me understand why, in this day and age when everyone has the attention span of a goldfish due to doomscrolling, why are most wrestling matches so bloody long?

I get it, I'm not a 'wrestling' guy in terms of the in-ring stuff ever being my favourite part of a show, but surely there were aspects of the Attitude Era that were bang on and didn't have to be jettisoned en-masse? You could easily have a fast paced show, everyone being involved in some kind of storyline with a few 2-3 minute matches. In fact, it would be perfect in terms of packaging for social media.

I have a colleague. Both of us are huge wrestling fans and know the other one is but we never discuss it. I think we've only ever had one conversation about it in three years. And I'm very pleased with this arrangement. 

I agree somewhat with the match length stuff somewhat but not because of social media packaging or any of that rubbish. If I was a booker with every match on TV my thinking would be "ok, what am I trying to achieve with this match? How much time do I need to achieve that objective?" and book accordingly. There's a beauty in a great short TV match. Bigger isn't always better. Often I'm watching a match between two midcarders go 15-18 minutes on TV and thinking "a 7 minute version of this would have been way better". There should be a range of match lengths on TV  each week. 

[Lorne Malvo]

13 hours ago, garynysmon said:

It seems to me that while proper sports are trying to tighten up (see Cricket with the Hundred for example), American wrestling has gone in the opposite direction and hunkered down to appeal to a smaller base of hardcore fans.

 

I think this is the kind of thing WWE were going for with WWE Speed. A watered-down faster-paced product made for the easily-distracted doom-scroller rather than the purist. It was rubbish, The Hundred is rubbish, and any attempt to dilute sports/entertainment in order to get a few more eyeballs on it should be discouraged. 

I do agree with the broader point that matches are too long in general, though. You need variety on your wrestling show. AEW in particular could do with bringing back the squash match, not everything needs to be a back and forth mini-epic. 

[AshC]

So much of today's TV wrestling is an extension of the 2010s indies, where if somebody was travelling to a show in the first place, they wanted to wrestle for half an hour. 

What you're saying is bang on, fwiw. 

[LaGoosh]

8 minutes ago, Lorne Malvo said:

AEW in particular could do with bringing back the squash match, not everything needs to be a back and forth mini-epic. 

They usually do a squash match or two on Collision but I'd always be keen for one or two more.

[Lorne Malvo]

1 minute ago, LaGoosh said:

They usually do a squash match or two on Collision but I'd always be keen for one or two more.

Come to think of it the last episode I watched had a Josh Alexander squash. But it was Josh Alexander so forgive me for forgetting it.

[tiger_rick]

AEW have quite a lot of squash matches. Odd to suggest they "bring it back".

Agree wholeheartedly with @LaGoosh on TV matches. There's definitely a case for pulling back a lot of them, particularly so that the really good stuff stands out.

But, I'd also agree with @CavemanLynn on myavourite matches. the length has never been important because they're just good but if I was to go off and check the times, there's no way they're not all in the 20-30 minute bracket, except Harts/Demos from SS90 which is sub 15 mins.

I've always preferred promos and angles. They're generally just a bit more momorable and rewatchable. I love a good match but I wouldn't consider myself a real wrestling guy. That's until the last few years and the rise of these fucking stupid people who seem to hate wrestling. Presumably it gets in the way of all the adverts. I'm practically Meltzer compared to those melts.

[BomberPat]

I agree broadly on too many long matches; there are two competing main event styles at the moment, one is the Omega/Ospreay epic and one is the Roman Reigns melodrama, and they both tend to hinge on being longer than they need to be if you're not one of the very specific group of people who can really make them work.

I don't think it's a short attention span thing - I actually think that "short attention spans because of social media" is a misguided idea of how people consume media, because it doesn't take into account that people will sit and stream an entire series of a TV show in one sitting, or watch a four or five hour YouTube or Twitch stream, or that the majority of the highest grossing films this decade are well north of two hours in length. I just think you should approach every wrestling match on every show by asking "what is this for?", and strip away anything that doesn't serve that question - the example that comes most readily to mind is Will Ospreay returning from injury to have a competitive match with Blake Christian; that match was only 7 or 8 minutes, but I don't think it did anything for either man.

For me it's less matches and more show lengths. People rag on AEW all the time for it, though if I'm paying for a pay-per-view from a company that employs many of the best wrestlers in the world, and practically all the best wrestlers in North America, then I'm not really going to complain about getting a lot for my money - helps that I rarely watch them live, so can take my time with them, though. I'm more thinking indie shows - your show doesn't need to have ten matches, particularly when six of them are functionally the same as each other. Less is more. Give me 4-6 matches where each one offers me something different to the others.

[garynysmon]

2 hours ago, tiger_rick said:

I've always preferred promos and angles. They're generally just a bit more momorable and rewatchable. I love a good match but I wouldn't consider myself a real wrestling guy. That's until the last few years and the rise of these fucking stupid people who seem to hate wrestling. Presumably it gets in the way of all the adverts. I'm practically Meltzer compared to those melts.

I’m not sure I’d go as far as saying that I ‘hate wrestling’, but its certainly a fair observation to say that the actual wrestling wasn’t what kept me watching the WWF when I was growing up.

I was always more enthralled by the hype and entrances than the actual in-ring mechanics and would happily fast forward a lot of matches just to get to the end bit.

A fan of everything surrounding the wrestling rather than the wrestling itself, if that makes sense?

Now I’d much rather listen to a podcast discussing what was happening backstage around the time of Starrcade 90, than to watch the PPV again, for instance.

Don’t get me wrong, I could and still can appreciate a good Bret Hart match. But I just never got on board the ROH and indy fascination in the naughties, and I suppose that still shows in terms of why most modern wrestling just leaves me cold. Its so based by that movement 20 or so years ago isn’t it?

So I suppose that while many fans started out watching WWF/WCW for the same reasons as I did, they developed an appreciation for the ‘art’ over time.

Whereas I’d be happy enough if squash matches and Attitude-era 4 minutes were still the norm. I certainly wouldn’t feel I was missing out on anything anyway.

Edited 16 hours ago by garynysmon