duskjome Theoretically this will be the first in a weekly series of wrestling related posts. First, a bit about the author that I promise is important to the content of this article. During the attitude era and until just after the tail end of the Invasion angle I was a voracious consumer of wrestling related media. Magazines, Raw, Smackdown, Sunday Night Heat, Pay Per Views, spoiler articles in the friggin’ local paper, I needed to experience it all. Then the actual competition between then-WWF and WCW was no more and the entire product started to stagnate. In desperation I turned to TNA. This was just after Jeff Jarrett realized he couldn’t just be champion and boss and booker at the same time. And that was great. Just enough material to keep me interested but not so much that I felt like I couldn’t keep up. I was in college at the time and my old six to seven hour a week habit would have been a little too much to keep up. And then Vince Russo came along and TNA started to fall apart and I lost my love of the industry. I sort of think that was/is a work but that’s another story for another article.
So that was me. But the thing is there are probably a lot of people with that same history out there. Based on numbers alone there have to be just a massive amount of people who watched wrestling back in the WCW vs. WWF days who don’t now. And I want to be your doorway back in. I’m sure you’re wondering how the industry has changed since you’ve been gone. Well here are some of the wide categories.
Divas
I don’t like the term “Divas”. Let’s just get that out-of-the-way. I also am not the hugest fan of the current design of the title. It’s… very pink. The Divas division, however, is just far and away better than anything I would have thought possible when I left the WWE behind in 2001. The matches are entertaining, which, granted, I shouldn’t have to use as a qualifier but in the past the entire “entertainment” of a female wrestler was the fact that they were female. The sport treated them like little people, relying on the spectacle of a female wrestler to distract you from the fact that they had no ring presence, couldn’t deliver a promo to save their lives and didn’t know how to work their way out of a paper bag. All respect to Trish and Lita but the botched spots and wardrobe malfunctions of the late nineties/early 2000’s wouldn’t have made it on to NXT these days.
In summary, the current Diva’s are great on the mic, great in the ring (not “great for a girl” but just great) and the same amount of pretty. And since “pretty” was basically all that was offered to us in the past I think this is an easy call
Edge – Modern Era (by a wide margin)
Promos
I love this part of the show. So please forgive me if I quibble a bit on some specific aspects of it but… it’s kind of what I’m going to do in this entire article. An interesting thing has happened in wrestling in the last 15 years. Wrestler’s have gained a new tool to get ahead in the business beyond just putting proverbial butts in proverbial seats. And that tool is social media. And that has proven to be a double-edged sword.
In the past a promo spot or interview or any time there was speaking that wasn’t in a match was a team effort. People came to watch The Rock fight Stone Cold so it didn’t matter that much if Stone Cold won that last conversation because they sold the same amount of seats. Now if a Roman Reigns or a Dean Ambrose shows any anger or fear to a Stephanie MacMahon or a Corporate Triple H then they lose followers on their Facebook/twitter feeds. And that directly impacts whether or not they are seen as marketable.
So what we get are excellent solo promos. In the last two weeks I heard three solo promos that were Mick Foley in ECW quality. But what if we put two people in the ring at the same time? Suddenly you have Roman Reigns pretending not to care that Stephanie is booking him in essentially a four on one match. And Dean Ambrose who, admittedly, is supposed to be a little crazy, getting booked in the same match the next week and showing almost no reaction. This is great, for Dean and Roman. Look at them, they’re badasses, no jerk boss is going to keep them down. But what about Steph and Triple H? There’s a reason why everyone is sick of them and it’s not because they are doing a bad job. The good guys are going out of their way to belittle their efforts and that hurts the entire show. But I digress.
Edge – still a tie (man, those solo promo’s are good)
Matches
This is something that suffered the most after WCW went under. Quality wrestling is what that product was built on so naturally when it failed the direction went more to storylines and hardcore spectacle. The age of the three/four move main event star continued. I daresay claiming Stone Cold had more than three moves might be generous. But Stone Cold didn’t succeed because he had three moves.
He succeeded despite that fact. He knew the pace of a match, knew how to save those moves for the best times to get the best reaction from the fans. When the Stone Cold’s and Triple H’s of the world left we needed people with enough wrestling skill to make up for the lack of instinctual knowledge of how to work a crowd.
And, I’m happy to say, we have that now. It may have taken 15 years and many a failed attempt to make it through NXT but the WWE has positioned itself with a crew of performers who can provide steady entertainment despite being, relative to the main events of the 90’s/2000’s, inexperienced. We still have John Cena and Randy Orton and, somehow, the Undertaker who can bring a fan into the match enough to forget that they are doing the same three to four moves week in and week out but in the event that all three of them get injured, which I’m sure would never happen, we also have some talent who can just go out there and hit us with spot after spot and bump after bump until we have a clear winner.
Edge – close, but still pre-Invasion era (injury resolutions may change this in a few months)
Appeal
This is an odd one and essentially new to the modern era. One of the many ways the sport has had to change with the times is that there is a possibility to access more people than ever before. With Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/the internet in general it’s possible to reach audiences that were not accessible to wrestling in the past. So while we still have hillbillies, taciturn badasses, nutjobs and jocks there is also room for positive thinkers, bronies, gamers, steampunks, super heroes and pirates.
And I know what you’re thinking, we had a lot of those things in the past, didn’t we. And yes, I suppose we did
But they were also gimmicks in the worst sense of the word. The Hurricane was never going to be in the main event. You weren’t going to see Droz headlining Wrestlemania. In the past month I’ve watched a girl in steampunk gear wrestle for the Diva’s title and three dudes who are essentially Bronies win the Tag titles and share the screen with movie star/former champion The Rock. We’re in a new world. A world where the direction of the WWE and wrestling in general is more in the hands of the fans than ever before. We don’t just have to show our support with ticket sales and PPV buys. We can show our support by comment/liking/subscribing (all things you should do to Gameitall.com #shamelessplug #FoleyisGood). And, by doing so, we can influence who gets pushed and who doesn’t. In this world we could still have Paul Burchill’s quite frankly brilliant run as a pirate. We might have gotten to see Nick Dinsmore play something other than a, let’s not pull punches, retarded person. Might we even see Stephen Amell’s Arrow show up at Wrestlemania some year instead of the actor Stephen Amell.
vs 
So, is it worth it to come back? If you like seeing things you like happening in wrestling then yes, I suppose it is. The product has its ups and downs but it has come a long way in 15 years. I don’t watch eight hours a week like I used to but I still make it a point to watch all three hours of Raw. And, considering I only watch about ten hours of television a week, that’s saying something. I’m not going to guarantee you Twilight Sparkle vs. A Guy That’s Great At League Of Legends, Seriously, You Guys, He’s So Good. I’m just saying that’s possible now, and that makes me fairly happy.
