Are we in the dark ages of wrestling?

[Metal Face]

it's shytty right now but not the worst it's ever been

 

[Oville]

That whole “marks in the ring” thing went from a hilarious punchline to actual facts. You can tell because every persons origin story is basically “I’ve been watching all my life and it has been a dream of mine”. This is how (the WWE in particular) can dupe the hell out of a lot of folks and treat them any way. It’s truly Stockholm syndrome.

Except I think wrestlers today have proven to be more vocal to management then in the past I'd say.

 

[SpacelySprockets]

Too many fans became wrestlers. like 80% of the indies is people living their dream which is fine, but in any other era they would have never been allowed to lace up their boots. This sounds weird to say about a fake sport, but even they are "playing" wrestlers. imagine if a bunch of NFL fans started their own leagues all over the country and you have some cashier from walmart claiming he was a "pro-athlete just like Tom Brady". This is what wrestling is right now. You can have some low level GCW trash wrestler walkin around talking about "in this business...we...."

Thank you. Then you got dweeb ass nikkas angry because WWE is doing NIL shyt and holding college tryouts and they're trying to gatekeep against it talking about "oh so just fukk the people who grew up an actual fan of this sport dreaming to become a wrestler and working the indies huh?!?!", the biggest wrestlers of all time have consistently been guys who excelled in other sports and got into wrestling as a fall-back plan, not marks who twerk for Dave Meltzer ratings

 

[Oville]

I mean, you couldn't find a biggest wrestling fan than Ric Flair and dude was in the biz 50 years ago and became a huge star 45 years ago. Same with Dusty.

You wont find bigger "marks" for the business and themselves than 90's Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels and they lead half the business in the US for 4 years. shyt, Steve Austin is a HUUUGE fan of wrestling, dude knows stuff (and has watched stuff) tape traders nerd out about

We gonna act like we were watching weekly 70'-90's wrestling from all over the U.S and around the world like we do now . Or like anyone younger than 35 doesn't just pick and choose 90% of what we want to see from any promotion before 1995. We basically watch a bunch of "best of" shyt from the past and then compare to weekly episodic shyt from nowadays and go "oh this shyt ain't that good " well no shyt if you pick weekly anything from any era you are gonna find the same damn flaws you see today.

This is a phenomena that exists when it comes to fandoms of so many things. People get nostalgic and only remember great things from the time they first fell in love with something and weeding out the crap that existed in that era at the time.

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

I got a homie I work with that’s 23 and he swears the Undertaker vs Khali feud was insanity and the peak of wrestling. shyt was a big deal to him. I don’t have the heart to tell him that shyt was fukkin terrible and not remembered fondly by the wrestling world at all

That's fine. Nothing really wrong with that. To me it's same as music. i can't get into a lot of new rappers no more. But some are gonna remember them fondly.

But when i do introduce some 90's or early 2000s to them.. some do agree that it's way better. Some say they era better

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

It's been bad for a long time. It hit bottom over a decade ago, probably close to 15 years or so and it's been mediocre ever since.

i don't agree with that part.. when Bryan was doin the Yes thing and the Shield and Wyatts were poppin i seem to remember that era having near universal praise on here no?

 

[DaHNIC82]

Plus injuries are fukking up plans for AEW, WWE,

 

[MikelArteta]

different strokes, I remember back in the day you had to watch it live or tape it because you couldn't see it again. I remember going to wrestlezone for "spoilers" but half were false.

 

[Paper Boi]

nope dark ages was when John Cena was spray painting JBL IS POOPY on a limo, TNA was booked by Russo and you could only get ROH/indys/Japan on DVD.

 

[William Heavy]

Dark Ages for some, Renaissance for me. The Rock vs Hogan at Wrestlemania was the last match I watched for years. I stopped watching after that. Never watched TNA. When AEW was announced I got back into wrestling. I started watching Lucha Underground re-runs, WWE, AEW, New Japan, Impact, ROH, NWA, AAA, and CMLL. I watch more wrestling now than I did as a kid. The only fans that are mad are the traditional ones who only want "Big Buff Guys" to get pushed the way Vince likes

 

[Dipsey Doo]

I actually enjoy this era of WWE to be honest. It’s been fun for me watch how certain wrestlers have grown since the rise of NXT. I don’t have time anymore to watch 7 hours of weekly WWE programming so I just pick and choose what I watch these days. With WWE network and YouTube it’s easier to watch WWE at your own pace than when weekly TV was can’t miss.

I want to like AEW and enjoy certain aspects, but it’s just my cup of tea.

I think late 1992 through 1993 was the nadir of pro wrestling in America.

 

[DANJ!]

I feel like perspective gets lost as we get older



We’re in someone’s golden era right now. There’s kids out there that are having the time of their lives with todays product and 15 years from now will be having nostalgic conversations about how they miss this era and the current (future) product will never compare.


It’s a cycle. We’ve been around long enough and have watched it happen enough times to understand this by now.

Yeap. I started watching wrestling in '87, and even the eras that I thought were trash, some people were in love with. There's people who love that New Generation and Hogan-era WCW because that's what they grew up on. I was checked out of wrestling around then, because to me it was trash compared to what I was watching in '88-'89. Then there's a generation after that who got onto it in the Attitude Era and didn't catch any of the prior shyt- Attitude Era's always gonna be their shyt. I got a nephew that's now 19, he loved it in the late-00s/early-10s. And currently, there's definitely kids out there who don't know much about ANY of those eras but they like the stuff they're watchin' now.

It's the same thing with fans of any entertainment from any era. People get older and think because something isn't geared towards them anymore, it's in a bottomless hell and no one should like it. I don't care how good or bad the product is, there is nothing that's gonna excite me like how I was when WrestleMania V was coming up and I was watching the Report every week to see what new matches were on the card... mostly matches that, if they booked TV the way they do now, would be regular TV matches that happened every week. Imagine getting hype over Hercules vs Haku or Bushwhackers vs Fabulous Rougeaus But that's the way it was for that time, just like there's probably a 10 year old somewhere that wants to see Lashely beat the shyt outta Theory. They brought back Stone Cold Steve Austin at this year's Mania, something people clamored for forever, and the 40 year olds who've been fans since Austin's prime still found a way to bytch about it. Older fans will never be happy with shyt, that was a prime example. We've been watching this stuff forever and seen all there is to see- today's wrestling is geared toward the ones who haven't because they're the ones who get the most excited. Nothin' wrong with that.

 

[threattonature]

I feel like perspective gets lost as we get older



We’re in someone’s golden era right now. There’s kids out there that are having the time of their lives with todays product and 15 years from now will be having nostalgic conversations about how they miss this era and the current (future) product will never compare.


It’s a cycle. We’ve been around long enough and have watched it happen enough times to understand this by now.

Came in to say this. Same way fans of the 80s bytched about the Attitude Era and how it b*stardized the sport. Same way old time fans bytched about the WWF takeover and how it exposes the business by being too obviously fake. I think most of us just got old and the business has passed us by for the most part. I do wonder how successful a promotion would be that looked more like like early 2000s in ring wise without as much flippy shyt.

I will say though that my favorite wrestling shyt was stuff I didn't watch until 25 years later which was late 80s NWA so not sure if it's all nostalgia. Maybe nostalgic in the style that I grew to love.

 

[ALonelyDad]

Talent is good but the character building and storylines is a mess. Storytelling is as important as the wrestling for me

 

[WhatsGoodTy]

Think we still not in the dark ages