Out of the Nineties and Into the 2010's

[Zardnaar]

Back in August or so I signed up for the WWE Network.

I used to watch the WWF from 1988 or so through to 1997 (at least the main events) and watched WCW 1997-1999 or so.

It was because of what was free to watch on New Zealand Television (Superstars of Wrestling was around 6 months out of date in the 80's). Right now WWE is on satellite TV here nad its kind of expensive ($50-100+ vs $10 for Netflix/WWE Network)

These days I have bee watching the main events, the 1 month delayed coverage of Smackdown and now RAW, just watched 205 and it has taken me several months to watch around a years worth of the Attitude Era. IN the lead up to watching wrestling I was reading about how bad it has been and Roman being a failure.

Overall I have been pleasantly surprised. I have been enjoying it and by the sound of it the interwebz has been a bit melodramatic. If you want shit wrestling try WWF 1995 or most of 1996 or most 1993-1996 matches that do not involve Bret, Shawn, Owen, Undertaker. I enjoy the can't miss part of the attitude era and the in ring ability of most of the roster.

However there are several problems modern wrestling has. In no particular order.

1. Lack of star power. OK Cena is a big deal (currently AFK) and he did not bore me for 10+ years. I like AJ a lot and he is a big draw for me and the roster is full of great mid card and technical wrestlers. Whoever there is no Hogan/Austin/Rock equivalent. I just watched an AE era RAW and they had a 5 man brawl for the number 1 contender- Kane, Undertaker, Mankind, Rock, Big Show and they had HHH and Austin floating around. With the right push some of the mid carders like Ken Shamrock or Mr Ass are also believable contenders. So you have around 7 or 8 wrestlers all of whom are ex champions to interact with each other.

WCW had Nash.Hall/Hogan/Sting/Flair/DDP/Goldberg who were all viable contenders.

2. Repetitive matches. Sasha vs Charlotte, Ziggler vs The Miz, AJ vs Dean Ambrose. All are good matches in a vacuum. In a mere 4 months I am sick of the same members in every damn PPV. See lack of star power why is Ziggler not in the world title/universal title picture?

3. Likeable heels. Jericho, Charlotte, AJ, Rusev even KO. Charlotte is the best one the others are almost babyfaces. To entertaining to be heels or to damn good in ring (AJ). I like Rusev, Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt.

4. Meh baby faces. I don't hate Roman as he can wrestle and I have enjoyed a few of his matches but he is not "the guy" either. Ambrose is alright, Rollins seems to be the best option left. New Day are boring/stale (Big E solo act though....), Enzo and Big Cass are great but the best babyfaces/heels are further down the card. I want to hug Bailey stupid addictive music.

5. 50/50 booking+ I like to many on the roster. No good heel to hate like Vince McMahon or early HBK (1992/93),

6. Weak champions. KO never wins clean (like ever) and as entertaining as AJ and Elseworth are he is a big fish in a small pond. Cena won to much (79% apparently) but other strong champions have won around 60% of the time (HBK, Austin, Rock etc).

7. Meh storylines/booking combined with to many titles (Smackdown tag titles, Universal title, US title etc). I like it simple.
Heavyweight/world title
Intercontinental title
Tag team title
Womens title

8. Raw at 3 hours (2.2 on the network vs 1 hour 20 mins for Smackdown)

9. Shallow talent pool on Smackdown (used well though)

10. Stephanie McMahon needs a beatdown. VInce put over a a lot of wrestlers to his credit.


The PG thing I do not mind to much although they could push it on occasion. Watching Rock beat Mankind around the head with a chair (RR 1999) is uncomfortable these days, stupid stunt killed Owen and concussions and drugs have taken a toll on older wrestlers many of whom are dead. The best of WCW was PG along with some of the best matches in the 80's and 90's in the WWF.

Overall Smackdown I like better, better booking, shorter, nice and simple, humour feels less forced and a big AJ fan and I like more of the women as the Sasha/Charlotte feud kinda buried the other RAW women.

On the plus side I like the matches I thought Survivor Series was great, Summerslam a bit crap but I enjoyed Backlash and Hell in a Cell as well- Clash and No Mercy were decent enough. In general an average episode of Smackdown might be better than the average episode of AE RAW and both are better than an average 3 hour RAW episode now. AE era is entertainig for the stunts and hijinks and storylines not because of the actual wrestling (most AE PPV are kinda crap).

The women are also attractive without being put over as trash.

The inner 18-20 YO me is now gonna wander off Gooollddbeerg, Gooollddbeerg, Gooollddbeerg.

PPS I watched a bit of WCW Monday Nitro as I remember some of Jerichos promos and they have replaced his original music with his WWE music.

 

[Solidus1]

Great post, enjoyed reading it and share nearly all of your thoughts.

 

[Jacob Fox]

I agree with most of what you wrote. I really, though, think the problem WWE has which eclipses all others is their amount of product. I think that is one of the reasons we get the same matches over and over. It's hard not to when you have 5 hours of live shows every week, now nearly two PPVS a month, Main Event, NXT... on and on.

Anyway, great post.

 

[Zardnaar]

I agree with most of what you wrote. I really, though, think the problem WWE has which eclipses all others is their amount of product. I think that is one of the reasons we get the same matches over and over. It's hard not to when you have 5 hours of live shows every week, now nearly two PPVS a month, Main Event, NXT... on and on.

Anyway, great post.

Yeah in the AE you had more cycling of the wrestlers on RAW. Austin would not wrestle every damn week.

 

[Jacob Fox]

I remember loving the Monday Night Wars. We would always get pizza and then watch Raw first. We did it this way since Nitro always replayed immediately after it was done. So we'd watch Raw and then Nitro. Four hours of wrestling and I was actually not burnt out at all. This was due to the fact that WCW had such an enormous roster and they were two hours each for each company. Like even when I am burned out on WWE, I can watch NJPW or ROH because it's different.

It was a little tough when Nitro went to three hours but it still wasn't bad.

 

[Roadster]

7. Meh storylines/booking combined with to many titles (Smackdown tag titles, Universal title, US title etc). I like it simple.
Heavyweight/world title
Intercontinental title
Tag team title
Womens title

That is completely counter-productive to the concept of a brand split. The titles give the shows their own identity. The titles have purpose, and a talent pool to work for them. The booking isn't exactly spot-on, but it's been much better than before. I especially disagree with your idea that the United States title is useless. Lower mid-card titles are very effective if used correctly. To say that, at a time of such immense talent and programming, that the WWE needs to cut back on their titles and even cut away one of their mid-card titles is horrendous.