| JWeinCom said: I actually think, in WWE at least, the match quality has been getting better in terms of storytelling. Rhodes vs Rollins was great each time, every one of Gunther's matches but especially the ones against Dragonov and Sheamus, Becky vs Bianca, and Reigns vs Mcyntyre are recent examples of great matches. And Brock vs Reigns last man standing in more of a spectacle way. I've been watching old PPVs a bunch recently, and overall I'd say modern WWE wrestling is better. I don't think anything today is as good as the stuff with Angle, Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, and Mysterio back in the day, but I think you're forgetting how much of the stuff they were doing absolutely sucked. |
That’s true, I don’t disagree with what you’ve said about earlier wrestling and can’t really comment on WWE for the past few years.
I think my take on that is that there were some absolutely putrid matches in the past. 98/99 had very few good matches, perhaps even the lowest concentration of them. Rewatching the entire Attitude era was a real eye opener in just how much better things got after late 1999 or so. Jericho and Angle came in, but I think it was Angle that really lit a fire under their asses because Jericho didn’t seem to have anything spectacular under his belt until he became involved with the Radicalz in early 2000. Also, I think Edge and Christian, The Hardy Boyz, and the Dudley Boyz really stepped up the quality of the tag division which before was kind of a shock-TV side show featuring Outlaws, DX, and the Nation—and later on stable stuff like the Ministry and the Corporation and the Corporate Ministry—IMO, so lacklustre and anti-climactic that it made the Alliance vs WWE seem brilliant by comparison.
My main recent experience is with AEW, and I’ve noticed that a lot of wrestlers take really brutal moves and don’t sell it a great deal. The athleticism and move complexity is outstanding, don’t get me wrong, but it seems (to me) that the consequences of spots don’t really impact the stakes or tension—if I’m talking in storytelling terms. It’s like a blockbuster film, all flash and little to no tension. To me, top tier selling is 1990s Japanese wrestling, moves look like they hurt and have consequences, they build and build until they have trouble delivering moves—they look exhausted. Then they execute the big desperation spots that look insane, until finally someone is destroyed.
I think a lot of modern wrestling was influenced heavily by that, in that they get the hierarchy of moves down, but there’s a bit of a difference in “how do I put this guy down? Let’s try a bigger move!” than “OMG! If I don’t win now I might actually die!” type tension. When you’re looking at a less brutal match (than an exploding barb wire death match, for example), like Jericho be Benoit Ladder Match at Royal Rumble 2001, the way they sold gave the match a level of authenticity, even if it’s only subconscious.
To be fair, I haven’t really been watching much wrestling in the past year or so. I also think there are some great wrestlers still around who know how to sell, and I probably do have a large bias given I was a teenager back when the Attitude era, and have a lot of nostalgia for it. But, the wrestling I think I enjoyed the most, ever, was NXT during the time period in the era when Asuka, Gargano, and Ciampa were at the core. Something happened to the quality when it moved from 1 to 2 hours, or maybe it was just too much wrestling. There was something great about NXT, as well, when it wasn’t an equal brand, but a brand where if someone became good enough, dominant enough, they’d eventually be raised to the Smackdown and RAW rosters. That added a whole level of intrigue, even when some were sticking around for a few years at the top (like Asuka).
EDIT: Removed my original quote from the post.
Last edited by Jumpin - on 31 March 2023I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
