I'm too old for this shit...(OR "Back in my day...")

[MORELOCK]

This is pretty specific, but when wrestlers are posing with one at the top of the ramp and one in the ring, it's fucking terrible every time. The announcers babble too long with obviously scripted stuff, the wrestlers look REALLY stupid just standing there huffing and puffing for over a minute, someone's music that has already played five or six times will be played to "dramatic" effect. It just comes off very poorly, whereas I don't remember it coming off that poorly when it started back in the Attitude Era.

[The Great ML]

YEP! I also hate how after a win everyone slowly walks backwards up the ramp in order to stare at the fallen opponent who is just coming to consciousness. By the time they reach the top of the ramp, they will lock eyes.

 

Just walk back to the locker room.

[w. josh]

 

Who actually was the last guy who got a nickname to stick?

 

 

Going through the roster right now...Bad News Barrett might count, although even there they ONLY refer to him by that name, like his first name is actually "Bad News" and not Wade anymore. Other than that, you can refer to Jericho as Y2J and Lesnar as the Beast (and maaaaaybe Henry as the World's Strongest Man), and everyone else either has a convoluted nickname or is officially known as something dumb like R-Truth or Big E. Shit, Cena doesn't even have a nickname, and the best Bryan got was "The Flying Goat." Give me more Ravishing Ricks and American Dreams, dammit.

[Technico Support]

I'm 40 and I grew up on the WWF and NWA, as they were called back in my day when you tied an onion to your belt, as was the style.  Today, I DVR Raw and maybe watch matches or segments that get positive reviews but, more often than not, I just delete it sight unseen.

 

The problem is there's so much TV to fill that nothing means anything anymore. 

 

When I was young, just getting to see two midcarders wrestle each other on Saturday Night's Main Event was a huge deal and a treat, because you never saw that unless you paid money to do so on PPV or a house show.  Today, every match is done to death on TV and all these guys are so overexposed that there's no reason to care about anything.  Why sit through 3 hours of Raw this week when there's going to be 3 more hours next week and the next, leading up to a 3 hour PPV, when you'll just see permutations of the same guys working each other, with the same style, each week?  And why watch the PPV when you'll get rematches the next week on TV and the next month at the next PPV?

 

It's not just recycling the same guys and matches.  It's the booking, too.  There are no consequences to anything.  Cesaro is wrestling Shamus?  Great.  Whoever wins will not move up the card and next month both will be the same spot so who cares?

 

Say what you want about indies but PWG is pretty much all I watch with any regularity.  They're once a month (if that) so every show is special.  Wrestlers have distinct and different styles, and the commentary, while funny at times, doesn't make a mockery of anything.  And their titles are booked as meaningful.

 

I'm hoping the lack of competition and the lessened need to "sell PPVs" because of the network will cause WWE to dial it back a notch.  There's no need to burn through big matches on TV anymore.  They could use PPVs in a more innovative way now since there are no worries over "buyrate."  Shit, do old school KotR and Survivor Series.  Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent.  I'll just say that, as an older dude, I don't enjoy WWE because nothing they do means anything.

[Uncle Coaster]

re:  The Flying Goat

 

Another thing I forgot to add when it comes to announcers....it's ok to take wrestling seriously.  We all know the entire premise of wrestling is ridiculous.  We don't need to be reminded of it each week.  

 

Oh...and why don't (m)any of the women have last names?  Or foreigners have first names?

[OSJ]

Sort of funny, but most of the problems that have been brought up regarding WWE can be easily solved, and not by the wrestlers or even the writers... I've always said that wrestling is "theatre of the extreme", well, what does every character need? Motivation. Plain and simple. There must be a reason for an action to be taken (and I'm not drifting into FSW territory and saying "it's just wrestlers having wrestling matches"), but motivations are not given the attention that they deserve and the blame falls squarely on the announcers. Remind me that the Intercontinental Title holder is automatically the #1 contender for the World title. I do think it time to split the belts again, that way you have the NA title the #1 contender for the WWE Heavyweight.  Or rename one of them the TV title and explain where that puts the belt holder in the pecking order. The wrestlers for the most part do a decent job of getting their talking points across, but the announcers are far too busy shilling the network or making inane jokes to do what they're supposed to be doing. We can make fun of Tony Schiavone all day but he did an exemplary job of getting the motivations across.

Not every wrestler need be motivated by a belt either, it's actually more interesting if there are a variety of purposes at work... Bray Wyatt shouldn't be worried about a belt, he has bigger fish to fry. Hideo Itomi should be concerned with proving his superiority over NA wrestlers, no belt required. It's too late now, but they should have made a big deal of Cesaro wanting to prove himself without Heyman's help. Dean Ambrose is being booked perfectly with revenge as his motive, he doesn't care about a belt and is hugely over without any mention being made of where he is in the title picture. Like Rowdy Roddy Piper before him, Ambrose doesn't need a belt to be interesting. Showing Cena as being obsessed with the title was good writing, but the same care needs to extend up and down the card. It hasn't been shown yet, but it will turn out that the Bunny has tremendous motivation for screwing with Titus O'Neill. If they can pay that much attention to the Bunny, why not the rest of the roster?

But the bottom line is that it's all up to the announcers to remind us what the motivations are. When they fail to do that it hurts the whole show from top to bottom. I marvel at how well NXT does these little things that should be second nature on the main show. (Let's put it this way, do to one thing and another I had not been able to watch NXT until two months ago when I finally got around to getting the network. Within two weeks of current shows I knew who everyone was, why they were doing what they were doing, and I could deduce where storylines were likely to go. That's two one hour programs and a special (I went back and watched Takeover). NXT doesn't fool around with a whole lot of backstage nonsense, they don't have the luxury of a three-hour show so most of this knowledge was imparted by the announcers. And guess what? They advertise the network on NXT too, it's just that the announcers do their damn job instead of making themselves the center of attention.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Wyatt and others are only using WWE as a platform to spew their bullshit and further spread their message so I agree that he doesn't need a title... though, he should be winning some feuds.

[Technico Support]

I miss turning on the show and seeing who's wrestling tonight.  Instead, you get a monologue by wrestler A, interrupted by wrestler B, and pretty soon your main event is booked because of their argument.  Well thank god for those guys because apparently there was no main event scheduled before that.

 

Wrestling TV writing hasn't changed in 15-20 years.  It's embarrassing.  Kevin Dunn and Vince McMahon both need to just go away and listen to Kid Rock and AC/DC somewhere..

[Jenalysis]

I miss tournaments.  I miss the King of Cable, King of the Ring, Battlebowl, stuff like that.

[Ultimo Necro]

I miss wrestlers that look like they would kick your ass. Part of the reason I think Lesnar, Henry and others are so revered on here is that they look like genuine ass kickers. So many of today's guys don't look like they could go to a bar and beat everyone up.

I mean they probably could, but they just don't look like they could, they would want to put on a show for the other bar patrons before beating the guy up. The mid card is super inter changeable with 6'2" guys with abs and the same gear with similar move sets.

Maybe Ambrose and the wyatts apart there is no grizzle amongst the roster. I miss my Harley Race, Terry Funk, Arn Anderson, Steve Austin types.

Also, needs more fat guys.

[E.J.]

I now understand why wrestlers hate smarks. I clicked with me going through my instagram feed and seeing all these 10 to 12 year olds leave comments like "push dolph ziggler" or "why is cena still champ he just holds everyone down turn him heel" on WWE's instagram account. I thought to myself, who the hell are these little shithead kids commenting about something they know nothing about and using insider terms like they know any better? Then I realized we are those kids to those wrestlers. Anyway, back in my day you didn't become a smark until you were at least 15-16!

[Kuetsar]

To add in on the foreign object discussion, when was the last time a heel used "brass knuckles", or threw "salt" in the eyes? Effective, easy ways to get a pin, without giving someone a concussion. I'm 35, and although I follow very loosely through the internet, I haven't watched raw in at least ten years. . . 

[Pete]

To quote Raven Mack, wrestling needs less Live Journaling and more Dick Murdoching.

[JRV]

So as a 41 year old dude, I've seen wrestling change from Gordon Solie interviewing Wildfire Tommy Rich in front of a plywood lectern to Total Divas and Adam Rose. Yeah, I still love wrestling BUT I'm starting to realize that I'm slipping past the target age demo and frankly, some of this shit I don't get and don't care to. So....with that said, fellow grumpy old bastards, what current trends or angles in wrestling don't you like or get MAINLY because you're old and pine for the old days.

It's not just aging or a change in demographic, it is all entertainment becoming more and more Spectaclist as the years move on and spectacular society continues to sharpen itself*. Also, there is definitely a monopoly situation in pro-wrestling that was not there in the territories days. (Not that wrestling was ever kosher from a Marxist perspective, like any business under capitalism - there was always one or at best a small handful of old white men running every little island.) Sometimes I'm surprised we're not all constantly analyzing that. There is some kind of irresistible appeal to picking out specific symptoms of a system without taking a step back.

[MongolianAxeMurderer]

I miss title defenses that meant something. Now we see 20 a week and multiple changes per month. Go back to defending it on big shows in massively hyped matches. Maybe have a champ squash a jobber to further an angle sometimes like Flair did in the 80s.

 

I miss street fights. Just bad ass dudes wearing street clothes punching the fuck out of each other. Not dudes in their normal wrestling attire wasting 20 minutes trying to build up an overused choreographed table spot that means nothing because we have seen it used every week for years,

 

I miss promos. Not 10 minute long conversation segments. One guy or group. Interviewed by an announcer. Hyping a feud, not trying to be a stand up comedian. 

 

I also miss War Games. More than anything. I'm only 30 but one of my early memories of watching NWA with my dad was the Merietta Massacre. I remember us screaming at our tv. War Games made for such perfect revenge.

[odessasteps]

To add in on the foreign object discussion, when was the last time a heel used "brass knuckles", or threw "salt" in the eyes? Effective, easy ways to get a pin, without giving someone a concussion. I'm 35, and although I follow very loosely through the internet, I haven't watched raw in at least ten years. . .

Didn't Rusev/Lana use powder in the last month or so?

[Nice Guy Eddie]

 

To add in on the foreign object discussion, when was the last time a heel used "brass knuckles", or threw "salt" in the eyes? Effective, easy ways to get a pin, without giving someone a concussion. I'm 35, and although I follow very loosely through the internet, I haven't watched raw in at least ten years. . .

Didn't Rusev/Lana use powder in the last month or so?

Well, they are in pro wrestling. It's pretty likely they have. Oh, you didn't mean that powder...

[Dre013]

Speaking of hating Internet fans (which I differentiate from smarks), a few posts ago someone killed Kevin Dunn. These Internet turds don't even know what Kevin Dunn does or what crappy angles he was involved in, yet because they read a third hand account of an interview with a disgruntled former employee or some alleged backstage heat, it becomes neckbeard gospel. Here are the only known facts on Dunn...he has been the Producer of the most successful era of TV and PPV programming, and is richer than us as a result. Stop it.

[CanadianChris]

Lana threw powder in Henry's eyes during the arm wrestling match.

[The Nature Boy]

Rusev and Lana seem like some weird time capsule back to the territorial days. Their very existence is retro by default.

[Mick32]

I miss heels being hated. A couple months back, someone on my Twitter feed was bitching about Bray Wyatt being booed. He's a heel. He's supposed to be fucking booed, dummy.

[Justin877]

I miss the "Art of the Time Limit Draw", building a match up to a fever pitch with the crowd buying into it and then having to end the match.  Leaving the crowd wanting more.

[Technico Support]

Speaking of hating Internet fans (which I differentiate from smarks), a few posts ago someone killed Kevin Dunn. These Internet turds don't even know what Kevin Dunn does or what crappy angles he was involved in, yet because they read a third hand account of an interview with a disgruntled former employee or some alleged backstage heat, it becomes neckbeard gospel. Here are the only known facts on Dunn...he has been the Producer of the most successful era of TV and PPV programming, and is richer than us as a result. Stop it.

 

Oh please.  I'm the one who mentioned Kevin Dunn.  All we know about anything is second and third hand because none of us in the business so come off your "I'm better than you smart marks" high horse.  You're here posting, so you're no better than anyone and stupid posts like this one won't change that.  How do you feel about Vince Russo?  All we know about him, truly, is things written about him and mentioned on podcasts, same as Dunn.  But we all take that as gospel.  So what's the difference?  Or do you have zero opinion about anyone in wrestling?  You're ridiculous.  If you're so above this discussion, there's nothing making you read it or respond.

[The Nature Boy]

Is bitching about Kevin Dunn really that much different than bitching about the management of your favorite sports team? None of us are privy to management info but we have an opinion on what needs to happen. The whole "anti-smark" movement is weird because there's no parallel in any other sports or entertainment entity. I've never seen people say "DON'T TRASH THE WRITERS" when referring to bad TV or "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HE COACHES" when referring to a sports team. 

[twiztor]

I miss promos. Not 10 minute long conversation segments. One guy or group. Interviewed by an announcer. Hyping a feud, not trying to be a stand up comedian. 

 

was watching some WCW b-show the other day and Mean Gene was interviewing the Steiners. Gene asked a question, Rick responded by starting to talk, getting all confused, and ended up barking.

and you know what? Mean Gene was there to make it all have some sort of meaning in the end.

that promo just emphasized to me exactly what is needed. little bits from the wrestlers that give them a character identifying trait, but someone there to weave it into an overall narrative. the announce team has to be one of the most important parts for the overall presentation.