Wrestling Discussion

[Fizanko]

The thing is that there's much more to wrestling than WWE.

There are so many promotions and companies in the world that can and do deliver some greatness, why stick to a company that constantly disapoint you ?

That's what i have a hard time to understand, i follow many wrestling boards (and it's where i find my various recommendation so i can easily avoid the crap and watch the good of what happens in the wrestling world) and the amount of complaints about how bad event A or show B coming from WWE was is simply astounding considering it's coming regularly.

Are people that masochist that they can only watch what they dislike ?

Because to me, i have 0 care about "the business", wrestling companies give me no money so i have absolutely no interest in whatever moves a promotion choose to do because "it's best for business", my only interest is : is the match i'm watching entertaining me or not, that is all.
If the match isn't good for my tastes, i don't watch.

When i came back to watch wrestling 5 or 6 years ago (i started to watch WWF in the end of the eighties, thanks to the Hogan vs André macth that was aired even in my country, Hogan being such a vivid memory from his Thunderlips in Rocky III seeing him wrestling "for real" was just amazing at the time, WCW 1998 killed all of my interest in watching), WWE simply didn't offered me anything i liked and i quickly stopped to follow their production.

So i just went back to watch old matches from my nostalgia, and old matches i missed (or couldn't watch before as they were coming from companies that never aired anything in my country) from the recommendations thanks to the various westling board internet.

This is what actually hooked me back, because in the end it is simple : if you watch only the good stuff and so completely skip the terribly bad, you can't get bored, even if it means you watch a match a day or two after everyone else, this natural filtering allow you to avoid getting disapointed.

It 's also those internet marvels that made me discover a couple of years ago the njpw current production (and past as i since watching so many recommended past matches from that company) that completely got me in.

 

[The NekoMancer]

I watch the WWE because I like it, personally.

If I disliked it, I'd stop watching and that would be it. Like I did during 2012 to 2016 pretty much haha.

I would watch more wrestling but, honestly, I have better shit to do than searching for something that appeals to me.
WWE is pretty practical to me, they upload their shows on youtube and i have to watch a full show only once a month and i still get entertained regularly by it.
Notice how I don't talk about the "wrestling" aspect. WWE has good wrestling, maybe sometimes too short or some little things here and there, but as far as wrestling goes, WWE does a great job. Just as good as any other company IMO.
What leads me to watching is the storytelling, the rivalries and the different personalities we find there. It appeals to me. Which NJPW, ROH, and pretty much everything most wrestling fans worship these days can't do.

I personally only like Kenny Omega from outside WWE, everyone else is just not appealing to me as a character.

Of course this just speaking of males wrestling. Joshi puro on the other hand i can watch anything and still get entertained.

 

[Deleted User]

I think you both make good points. Fizanko didn't like what he saw and took active steps to find an alternative.

A lot of people won't do that for a lot of reasons, the biggest being that most fans don't realize that there are companies outside of WWE in the first place. They really don't. It's not like wrestling attracts a crowd of super smart people.

Another reason many people don't go outside the WWE bubble is because they don't like the lower production values. Most Indy shows don't HAVE great production, they really don't. It takes away from being able to engross yourself in the product and stories being told (not me personally, I'm just stating where they are coming from).

Personally, I'm an older fan. I don't really enjoy a whole lot of newer stuff because the moves have become the story for a lot of it. There are exceptions, obviously, guys like Jay Lethal still go out there and tell a story using wrestling moves, but a lot of indy wrestling looks badly choreographed and planned out. Many moves look so cleanly executed it looks fake as fuck. I know a lot of other people like it, and I'm not saying I could do any better (I'm lucky to just be there), but it doesn't fit the kind of wrestling I personally enjoy.

I like killer promos. I like matches that make me forget about the moves that happened and instead I remember the feeling I got watching the story unfold. I can't tell you how ANY of my favorite matches went move-for-move, but I can how they made me feel.

Characters are important to a fan like me, I have to be able to lose myself in their struggle/story.

 

[Fizanko]

The thing is to watch what you like regardless of what is the promotion building it, that's the best choice in order to keep being interested. If you keep watching something you dislike out of some misplaced loyalty , you're going to just end getting bored and wasting your time.

It was my mistake at the time with WCW, originally as i liked what i was watching up to 97, it became progressively more and more horrible but still i watched because i hoped it would get back to being better.

But it did not, and it only achieved to throw me away from enjoying wrestling for decades, in the same time there was no internet to deliver wrestling from outside of what i was accessing on tv, but the best choice would have been to only watch my favorite wrestlers instead of whole shows offering.

That's probably why now that i came back to watch i decided to not repeat the mistake, if a company does not hook me, i don't follow it , i only watch matches i know are reported as good according to what i like about wrestling.
And so far it has served me well, and it even allowed me to discover many things out of the original bubble i was in back in the end eighties/late nineties.

 

[Deleted User]

Spot on. It took me YEARS of being frustrated with shows I didn't like the direction of before realizing that it was attitude, not booking I didn't like, that was ruining the show for me. Hell, you can even see it in my old posts. I, like many "smart" fans, has this very annoying sense of entitlement when it came to wrestling.

It's toxic, it doesn't help anyone. Nor does it help bring in more fans.

Anymore, I usually stick to classic stuff that I never got to watch, and classic stuff I could watch over and over again. It's like busting out your favorite music albums and listening to your favorite songs over and over.

Do I get mad when a musical artist makes an album I don't like? Maybe when I was a teenager. These days, I just don't buy or listen to the album and get on with my life.

 

[S.K. Stylez]

Forget that...the best moment of the weekend....Okada challenging Kenny.

 

[Fizanko]

Now that Okada has finally beaten all the longevity and streak records related to the main championship belt (if i remember well it was Tanahashi that had it until this year), it means that it is very likely this year someone will finally take the belt from Okada.

Omega has a good potential to be this guy, because if you look back at Okada champion run, Omega has been the only wrestler that had a draw with Okada (in last year Dominion match, and interestingly that's again Okada vs Omega in this year Dominion) in an actual championship match.
We know NJPW likes to do storylines that go on for a few years, so this draw is very likely going to mean something.

At least if they have not planned to mix the Cody/Omega rivalry in the middle with Cody interfering and costing Omega the belt, i hope they're not going this way, though as it's specifically a match set in 2 on 3 falls, i can imagine Cody costing Omega a fall.

Though, even if for now he seems to be out of the picture as NJPW sent him again into an IC belt run, Naito is still more over in Japan than nearly all of the other NJPW wrestlers , so he remains another Okada-streak breaker believable candidate.

But i believe whoever manage to get the belt will not hold it for very long, Okada is very likely going to come back , probably after one of those redemption stories.

Whatever happens at Dominion, i'm sure this is going to be an interesting year.

 

[Deleted User]

The DDT should always be a finisher.

Change my mind.

 

[Fizanko]

The problem with the ddt is that it's a move that has been used for too many years as a "normal" move , making it then hard for the people watching wrestling to feel it's a finisher like it was in the past when Jake Roberts was popularising it as a finishing move.

To workaround this perception, i think the best way is to give it some special/flair/gimmick addition and basically make it a variant instead of a pure classic ddt.
this compilation that feature a lot of modified and variants of the ddt

Of course there are some extreme versions in there too, but it gives the idea that ddt can be a finishing move again when tweaked.
But the pure classic ddt i think it's going to be difficult to have it as a finishing move, unless the wrestler on the recieving end is selling it masterfully too.

 

[Deleted User]

Yep! I think the last two people to get away with it was Raven and Dreamer.

You could argue Edge, Gangrel and Devitt did, as well, though they were altered versions.

I just miss when a DDT was devastating.

 

[Fizanko]

There are other moves that lost their finisher status with time.

It reminds me the suplex too, when you think the "god of wrestling" (Karl Gotch) that created basically japan "strong" style of wrestling had his finisher move being a suplex (that was named german supplex to honor him).

Yet now it's considered a basic move you'll probably see in every wrestling matches.

Though as mentionned with the ddt, with some tweaking, some wrestlers could still make it work as a finishing move, like Mr Perfect/Curt Hennig with the "Perfect-Plex" that was a fisherman suplex variant.

 

[The NekoMancer]

Same thing is happening to superkicks lately. So overused as a regular move it's been losing its impact.

 

[Deleted User]

Fuck's sake, POWERBOMBS. Freaking POWERBOMBS don't finish matches, anymore.

Have you ever taken a powerbomb? They're fucking HORRIBLE.

 

[Fizanko]

Probably explaining why wrestlers take more risks now and there are more injuries.

Because if strong moves (that were accepted in the eye of the spectator as strong enough to be finishers) are now just "regular move", it forces the wrestler having this kind of "normal" move to find a finisher that look stronger to keep the believability/kayfabe of a match ending.

And so making then more risky or visually more hard-hitting moves increase then the risk of an accident happening either for himself or for his opponent.

 

[Deleted User]

It's ironic. Back in the day, the big secret was that they weren't hurting each other.

These days, the big secret, is how badly it fucks you up.

Something was lost along the way.

 

[Fizanko]

I'm not so sure about the back in the day being that safer.

One must remember that back in the day there was no internet and so no informations/reveals spreading that fast about absolutely anything wrestlers were doing outside of the ring (and why kayfabe was still alive) , when a wrestler wasn't regularly on tv, we had no idea that it was because he had an injury or how serious it was.

From books and biography and with now the internet spreading all the backstage and related stuff we then learned that nearly all those wrestlers were filled with painkillers in order to be able to perform (and get paid) on their assigned shows due to the pain they were in from wrestling.
It was also one of the reasons a lot of them started their drug addictions .

Sometime it's not much of the move or the bump itself that is a problem, it's the repetition of them due to having too many matches by years that have some wrestlers bodies breaking down.
Sometime people forget they're only human with the physical limitations that comes with it.

 

[Deleted User]

I am because I'm friends with guys who worked back in the day. The painkiller phase didn't start until the 80's, really. And no, not "literally all" these guys had a problem with them. Some of them did, yeah, but to say it was something every wrestler struggled with is complete bullshit.

If you like those books so much check out Bret hart's book. He says that painkiller got popular when Vince took their weed away. The old timers I've been on the road with all say the same thing: Back in the day you could wrestle 6-7 days a week because it was safer, and they weren't hurting each other and killing their bodies all the time. Or as Rip would always say: "This is supposed to be phony bullshit".

I'm not saying it didn't hurt, I'm saying that the style was safer the boys weren't hurting each other. And that's a fucking fact. All you have to do is watch the old stuff.

Source: No books, just Rip Rogers, Kevin Sullivan, Bob Cook, Tracy Smothers, Al Snow, and countless others I've had the honor of being on the road with and worked shows with. They all say the same thing. And all you have to do is just watch the old stuff. It's monumentally safer, there is no comparison.

I'm not saying it wasn't hard on your body back then, it always has been, but compared to the new shit, today? Night and day. Go ahead and count the number of bumps in your average classic match compared to today. Go ahead. There's a reason Flair could wrestle to such an old age, and why more modern guys retire much earlier. If Rip hadn't been hit by a car he would still be working, and he's in his 60s. It's because he wrestled a safer style. Period.

Hate to throw out the whole "worker card", but saying something like "We don't know if it was safer back then because there was no internet" is kind of silly, bro. We can just ask the guys.

 

[Fizanko]

Ah so it's a naming contest, you name wrestlers that are still healthy and it's a proof wrestling was THAT safer "back in the days" ?
And i assume if i name wrestlers like Hogan with his back that required several surgery, Dynamite Kid body broken from all those matches, Misawa dead after all the accumulation of serious injuries he had, that's going to prove it was not THAT safer and that repetition still could broke your body and that accident still happened ?

Of course wrestling was safer than it is today i never say otherwise and you don't need to be a worker to notice that if one was sticking to the wwf/territories formula of a a bear hug and dozen of rest hold variants then throw a few punches and a lariat, pin or submission and call it a match , those weren't the most body breaking moves so wrestlers sticking to it could get a long career.

But wrestling being THAT safer that all those guys could wrestle 7 days a week and still be having a good health now, i don't buy it because unless those guys were sticking to the said formula, accident were bound to happen, bodies were hurt by repetition.

 

[Deleted User]

<blockquote class='quote\\_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd> </dd></dl><div>I'm not so sure about the back in the day being that safer.[/quote]

Direct quote from you.

<blockquote class='quote\\_blockquote'><dl><dt>Quote:</dt><dd> </dd></dl><div>Of course wrestling was safer than it is today i never say otherwise[/quote]

Also a direct quote from you.

I never said they were in perfect health, don't put words in my mouth. My point was that it was safer back then and the boys didn't hurt each other as much. You decided to contest that point by bringing up your research via books and internet. I responded with my real life experience. It's not a naming contest, I'm trying to show you that your point about us "not knowing" is completely and utterly invalid. And it is.

I never once said they were in perfect health, I said they could still wrestle. Don't put words in my mouth just because your initial point was completely wrong and misinformed.

This is why I don't talk wrestling with smarks a lot. You guys honestly believe your internet knowledge trumps real life experience. All you are doing is showing how much you don't know.

How blatantly silly can smarks get? They'll try to explain to a person who actually takes bumps... how bumps work.

 

[The NekoMancer]

Misawa dead after all the accumulation of serious injuries he had, that's going to prove it was not THAT safer and that repetition still could broke your body and that accident still happened ?

You named a completely different style of wrestling there, dude. Compare the Japanese style from back then and the American style and it's a night and day difference.

This comparison is kind of silly in my opinion.