Wrestling... is it all that!!

mtjm

Over the last number of years I’ve been watching wrestling from the 90s. While I’m old school fan, I always enjoyed the various events especially the big 4, (then the big 5 once KOTR) the story lines back then were in interesting and took time to build, now a days story lines are crap and are rushed, matches that get a build up turn out to be disapointing. And I now find it hard to watch a full match, I’ve recorded a few Raw shows and have yet to watch them. I find it hard to get into it now and even now when I read the stuff I just read it fast and think “load of ****” I’ve decided to stop watching the stupid stuff, may read on the crap but as for watching I WWE (TNA I've no interest) lost a long time viewer even going to any Irish promotion shows I wasn’t excided.

Do people feel like this? or am I alone (I didn't watch anything at all for a week and felt I'm not missing much either)

jaykhunter

Are you using a slightly larger font? Anyway you should read the threads around here, it's a common thought. Here's a pretty all-encompassing post from the RAW thread :

SureYWouldntYa wrote: »

Every week im disappointed, yet every week i stay up and watch it

Mostly everyone isn't that happy with the current product but keeps watching in case something awesome does happen. That said the PPVs are generally worth watching. Whenever Leggo puts on the PPV parties I'd recommend going as it's the best PPV atmos this side of the Atlantic!

My advice would be to cut down on the WWE you do watch (as you've done), explore other current promotions (TNA, ROH, maybe Japanese stuff) or do what I do, watch old WWF PPVs. Also, get into Breaking Bad.

montyrebel

watching since the 90's being old school :pac:

LOL

try since the 80's for me and form way before that for my dad :cool:

A Primal Nut

Yeah, everyone has the same view as that!

The level of technical wrestling is quite high compared to previous eras. But I'm personally not really interested in that. I'd happily watch two big guys beat the ****e out of each other as long as there is a good buildup and they are "true stars" who I care about.

Apart from stoylines the big problem is the lack of stars. There's something missing and it's hard to put my finger on it. Bryan is a great technical wrestler and has good mic skills as a heel...but he's no Kurt Angle. Punk is a great antihero, good on the mic and in the ring...but he's no Stone Cold Steve Austin. John Cena is the overall good guy, not so good in the ring but gets the job done...but he's no Hulk Hogan.

Watching the buildup to Undertaker vs Triple H and WrestleMania and the eventual match (amazing) really brought home that there is something missing from the current crop.

I still enjoy watching the PPVs; they are usually still quite good.

Charisteas

I'm definitely cutting down on my WWE viewing now especially since Brock may not be around again until next year.

gnfnrhead

I only bother with WWE during the summer because I have more free time. Once I'm back in collage I won't bother with anything outside of PPV's. Likewise with most other wrestling. Only watch the highly rated matches once I'm in collage.

Yousef

I just think you're getting older or reaching a stage where you find it increasingly difficult to emotionally invest in the concept of the product - I know I am. To be honest, I've very little interest in the industry as a whole in it's current manifestation. Why that is I can't quite put my finger on it; anything we may think it is would be only guesswork. Some blame the shift to a new marketing demographic, ability of performers, competition from other sports and a change in the hiring protocols of writers. I don't know what it is for me personally but something isn't the same. It has changed, changed fundamentally - perhaps not the product (it has but not as much as me); it's that I've changed. I've changed to a point (my balls dropped quite a while ago) where I can no longer sit and accept what I'm watching.

The only reason I'm here as someone else mentioned above is that perhaps some guy in the back will have a stroke of genius that will change the industry forever and I don't want to miss that day but as far as gaining even an ounce of entertainment from it today, I'd have more satisfaction putting my head in a blender. But as a whole, the entire industry is dying - attendance figures, ratings, buyrates are on their last legs. It's inevitable where it's going - the only question is how long...5...10 years?
Just doesn't seem like there is a demand for fake fighting like there used to be.

764dak

A Primal Nut wrote: »

Yeah, everyone has the same view as that!

The level of technical wrestling is quite high compared to previous eras. But I'm personally not really interested in that. I'd happily watch two big guys beat the ****e out of each other as long as there is a good buildup and they are "true stars" who I care about.

Apart from stoylines the big problem is the lack of stars. There's something missing and it's hard to put my finger on it. Bryan is a great technical wrestler and has good mic skills as a heel...but he's no Kurt Angle. Punk is a great antihero, good on the mic and in the ring...but he's no Stone Cold Steve Austin. John Cena is the overall good guy, not so good in the ring but gets the job done...but he's no Hulk Hogan.

Watching the buildup to Undertaker vs Triple H and WrestleMania and the eventual match (amazing) really brought home that there is something missing from the current crop.

I still enjoy watching the PPVs; they are usually still quite good.

Yousef wrote: »

I just think you're getting older or reaching a stage where you find it increasingly difficult to emotionally invest in the concept of the product - I know I am. To be honest, I've very little interest in the industry as a whole in it's current manifestation. Why that is I can't quite put my finger on it; anything we may think it is would be only guesswork. Some blame the shift to a new marketing demographic, ability of performers, competition from other sports and a change in the hiring protocols of writers. I don't know what it is for me personally but something isn't the same. It has changed, changed fundamentally - perhaps not the product (it has but not as much as me); it's that I've changed. I've changed to a point (my balls dropped quite a while ago) where I can no longer sit and accept what I'm watching.

The only reason I'm here as someone else mentioned above is that perhaps some guy in the back will have a stroke of genius that will change the industry forever and I don't want to miss that day but as far as gaining even an ounce of entertainment from it today, I'd have more satisfaction putting my head in a blender. But as a whole, the entire industry is dying - attendance figures, ratings, buyrates are on their last legs. It's inevitable where it's going - the only question is how long...5...10 years?
Just doesn't seem like there is a demand for fake fighting like there used to be.

Many people nowadays are suffering from nostalgia filter.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NostalgiaFilter

It is not just wrestling. It happens for every media - cartoons, movies, tv shows, etc. If you go on a Youtube video of a cartoon from the 90s almost every comment is moaning about the quality of today's cartoons. People say tv shows now are not what they used to be. People say older Pokemon and the games were better but this isn't true.

Once I watching a video of WWF Warzone for PS1/N64 which was released in 1998. There was a comment with many thumps up saying that game is better and has better graphics than WWE12 (PS3/Xbox 360). It wasn't a joke and he and everyone who thumped it up believed that.

Pre-Attitude era was PG. Today's WWE isn't worst than pre-attitude era.

DEFTLEFTHAND

I don't really watch WWE programmes on a regular basis anymore, I didn't even bother staying up for Summerslam, the first one I missed since 2000.

However I still watch a considerable amount of wrestling between old dvds and anything I come across on the net.

Arrow in the Knee

The attitude era was the best.

Stone Cold,The Rock,Vince McMahon and his family,Ric Flair,Mankind,Undertaker and Kane and even Triple H whom I hate to see him win!

Also the takeover WCW and ECW by WWF was great and entertaining.

But these days I don't feel the connection with the wrestlers on WWE.

I just go on YouTube and look at the WWF and the early years of WWE and I still have a connection and passion for that era!!!

CastorTroy

I never watch any of the shows live anymore because it would be too boring. I fast forward through wrestlers who usually give boring promos and matches.

I think a big problem these days isn't so much the PG era, which is part of the problem, but they're trying to appeal to people that aren't us. For example I don't think Alberto Del Rio or Sin Cara would be getting the push they are if they weren't so insistent on focusing on the Mexican market.
Or if they weren't so focussed on selling merchandise to kids we wouldn't get so much of the likes of Santino or Hornswaggle, though we haven't seen much of him these days.
So it's a combination of being too PC and too PG that's the problem, in my opinion

GTR63

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

The attitude era was the best.

Stone Cold,The Rock,Vince McMahon and his family,Ric Flair,Mankind,Undertaker and Kane and even Triple H whom I hate to see him win!

Also the takeover WCW and ECW by WWF was great and entertaining.

But these days I don't feel the connection with the wrestlers on WWE.

I just go on YouTube and look at the WWF and the early years of WWE and I still have a connection and passion for that era!!!

I would respond to you but I too have a arrow in the knee.

764dak wrote: »

Many people nowadays are suffering from nostalgia filler.

It is not just wrestling. It happens for every media - cartoons, movies, tv shows, etc. If you go on a Youtube video of a cartoon from the 90s almost every comment is moaning about the quality of today's cartoons. People say tv shows now are not what they used to be. People say older Pokemon and the games were better but this isn't true.

Once I watching a video of WWF Warzone for PS1/N64 which was released in 1998. There was a comment with many thumps up saying that game is better and has better graphics than WWE12 (PS3/Xbox 360). It wasn't a joke and he and everyone who thumped it up believed that.

THQ are also sipping the nostalgia coolade it ain't just people on homophobic comment site Youtube. People complain about the Pokemon games being better in the 90's erm nope people complain cause they are more or less the exact same game over and over again I should know i've bought all them. WWF warzone sucked but WcW vs Nwo and no mercy gameplay wise piss all over WWE 12 but their graphics even at the time looked like they ran on the earliest unreal engine imaginable with the weird misshapen bodies.

764dak

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

Also the takeover WCW and ECW by WWF was great and entertaining.

I agree with that.

I'm in my mid twenty's now.

I think we were spoiled during the attitude era.

It was cool to watch WWF.

I still watch WWE but like everyone else - Yes I would love to go back to the "good old days"!!

Raw on a Friday night and PPVs free every month.

Austin 3:16 - DX - The Corporation - 3 faces of Foley - Hardcore Title - Puppies etc!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6LM_9NFHOU

Arrow in the Knee

Also Shawn Micheals and NWO for a period.

Maybe Ric Flair should buy half the company again to spice things up.

Also Maybe Vince McMahon should takeover MMA and TNA to have another Invasion!!!

CastorTroy

Unfortunately I went for a long period of not watching WWF. I saw as far as Wrestlemania X at least then didn't see it again until Channel 4 started showing it. So I missed nearly the whole Attitude era. Channel 4 started about the beginning of the McMahon Helmsley era.

Arrow in the Knee

Arrow in the Knee wrote: »

Also Shawn Micheals and NWO for a period.

Maybe Ric Flair should buy half the company again to spice things up.

Also Maybe Vince McMahon should takeover MMA and TNA to have another Invasion!!!

To me the attitude era is The Montreal screwjob to Wrestlemania X7

Rjd2

I always have been a nightowl no matter what time I needed to be up in morning so Raw was always something that I liked to watch and just unwind as wrestling for me should be fun, but since it went to 3 hours I just can't, its to much of an investment really.:(

Smackdown is something that I only youtube, although I do like the ppv's as normally no matter how bad of a built a certain match may have its normally decent quality ring wise.

briany

I think it would be unfair to blame a nostalgia filter as being the only reason why older fans of wrestling complain about today's product. There is something missing in wrestling today but it's a myriad of things that causes that and nothing that could so easily be fixed. It's a precarious time for wrestling in today's climate of media on demand where people can be jaded with things almost as soon as they are invented. Really it's a wonder that it can stay relevant at all.

However, I think that wrestling, like all other artforms can do from time to time, is suffering from diminishing creative return. A genre of music is at it's most vital in the first wave where the influences are the most diverse and it has the most impact. The pool of creativity seems to dry up as successive waves of artists, imitating their predecessors more and more, making things more codified and safer ensure that their particular niche dies from blandness and overexposure. I think this is what has been happening to wrestling as it's been suffering from a huge lack of new ideas and nuance as well as standing to lose or throw away a lot of the old school knowledge that makes that whole thing tick. I think that also now we are getting a lot of talent who are coming into WWE with only a couple of years in FCW under their belt which means that we are forced to endure a lot of very green wrestlers with not much in the way of charisma, mic skills etc.

People like to have a go at today's wrestling, myself included, but it's funny that nearly a quarter of a century ago, people were doing it with just as much gusto as they do now on the newsgroups and they hated Hogan.

http://groups.google.com/groups/search?safe=off&q=%22hulk+hogan%22+group%3Arec.sport.pro-wrestling&btnG=Search&as_mind=1&as_minm=1&as_miny=1988&as_maxd=1&as_maxm=1&as_maxy=1993&as_drrb=b&sitesearch=

A Primal Nut

764dak wrote: »

Many people nowadays are suffering from nostalgia filter.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NostalgiaFilter

It is not just wrestling. It happens for every media - cartoons, movies, tv shows, etc. If you go on a Youtube video of a cartoon from the 90s almost every comment is moaning about the quality of today's cartoons. People say tv shows now are not what they used to be. People say older Pokemon and the games were better but this isn't true.

Once I watching a video of WWF Warzone for PS1/N64 which was released in 1998. There was a comment with many thumps up saying that game is better and has better graphics than WWE12 (PS3/Xbox 360). It wasn't a joke and he and everyone who thumped it up believed that.

Pre-Attitude era was PG. Today's WWE isn't worst than pre-attitude era.

Actually I agree the nostalgia filter is an element of it. It's normal that during your childhood and teenage years things seem more amazing as there is less to compare it to, whereas as an adult things are never like they used to be. This is particularly true with WWE and video games as the formally young demographic has shifted to those people growing up and are now mostly complaining instead of enjoying it. It's definitely a factor and some people definitely go overboard as with those comments on WWF Warzone.

In addition, the standards have changed as the times have changed. Back when I was a kid I thought Hulk Hogan was great, and when he comes back I think he's great. But if he started now, people would laugh at how rediculous he is and he wouldn't last long.

That said, the Attitude Era was definitely better.;) I'm actually watching it through. Like CastorTroy I stopped watching during that period and started again when it was shown on Channel 4 during the McMahon-Helmsley Era. So I've started watching 97-98 through and I'm much into than the 2012 WWE; even though I know most of the important things which happened.

Right now I'm watching April/May 1998 when the McMahon-Austin feud began. It was the same story every episode (McMahon trying to screw Austin, but Austin getting the best of him in the end). The end to each episode is amazing.