Pro Wrestling Has a Problem

Wrestling right now is awesome, it doesn't matter what kind of style you like or what kind of wrestling you want to see it is just out there waiting for you and will give you a loving embrace when you find it. So you could actually say that the wrestling bubble is smaller than ever this is why it may be about to cause a major problem. Anyway, i do love wrestling and even the bad stuff entertains me for better or worse. Because i watch it as such because i just think it's such a creative endeavor and the fact that you could always get an instant reaction well that just rocks. I mean i just want to see what people are going to do but as silly as it may sound you can have too much of something.

And it kind of feels like the professional wrestling world is getting to its breaking point. Let's face it it may not feel as exciting right now as it has now. I am not referring to all the breaking news stories that have happened over the last few weeks. I am talking about the product now. When it comes to WWE it's always going to be a little bit of a mixed bag especially when it comes to something like Monday Night Raw. Because I don't care if Steven Spielberg decided he was going to put a wrestling show together, you're going to be hard pushed to be able to do an entertaining one for three hours every single week.

You can't deny the repetitiveness, you can't deny the 50/50 booking or the constant rematches, or sometimes that feuds go way too long. But also coming out of Wrestlemania which was awesome you can't argue against that the major things have been Cody Rhodes versus Seth Rollins and Naomi and Sasha Banks walking out the company. And yes all that other stuff but again i'm talking about things that exist within the confines of the show. Because what i'm trying to tell you is that after you do get away from the granddaddy of the immortals, there should just be something more to talk about and instead it kind of feels like we headed into that mellow that has happened a lot.

AEW is no longer a new bright wrestling company

AEW is slightly different because if you're into what they're selling they're still doing a good job. Although yes to be fair you could say that about WWE but the switch with All Elite Wrestling is that they are now no longer a new spangly bright company. If that scene is gone you don't have to give them the benefit of the doubt anymore because they're doing it and they have created so many incredible moments for their fan base. Well you know what all of us geeks do, wake up every day and say well can we please have another incredible moment. Now this has manifested itself in an amazing rustler All you've got to do is go on social media and you will hear people saying well where did this guy go and i've lost my favorite and now that's made me a sad panda.

Because I tell you when you do have a bunch of bodies no matter how skilled they may be trying to use them when you only have three hours of television across an entire week well that's gonna be difficult. Just kind of the opposite problem that WWE has. And let's not pretend otherwise, either because we are now three years in. AWE and can't offer you new stuff anymore. Like the first time they did a cage match, it was like oh my gosh we're going to do a cage match, same with an iron man match or a DQ match or a hardcore match whatever it will be. But we've done that all now, and now we're getting to round two, so you've got to start trying to think outside the box more. And there's more to this as well because Impact Wrestling is a tremendous promotion but again it doesn't seem to be able to break through that barrier. And there's a reason that New Japan is so desperate to work with AEW at the moment and that's because the pandemic absolutely kicked its ass when it came to its business model. And as for Ring of Honor, well at the moment that is just AEW until it's not anymore.

Do We Need Another Wrestling Show?

But that does tie into my next point. Because I'm going to ask you two questions, so please do get a piece of paper and a pen and write this down. Because one do we really need another wrestling show on tv? And if so too who the hell has the time because it's just more competition on top of already competition which means every single promotion has to sit there week to week and go well how the hell are we going to get all these eyeballs on us. It means more than ever it's all about what we can do next. And if you drop the ball even the slightest bit everybody goes absolutely crazy and starts prodding you on Twitter to the point when you get seven days down the line you've got to pull something even bigger out your ass just to calm this all down.

And I get it too you want that adrenaline high which ties directly into everything that happened with Satnam Singh. You remember that because when the lights went off, pavlovian conditioning kicked in and a bunch of wrestling fans thought oh my gosh every time the lights go off and they come back on again I see somebody that I'm actually in love with. And then when it was Satnam Singh who you didn't know was like what's going on. So this meant that expectations that only lasted for about eight milliseconds had just been ruined and they were disappointed. What do you do when you're disappointed in 2022 you have a voice you've already talked about it and you go online and do it. I really don't think that it was that bad, especially because wrestling has no off-season it is 365 days a year.

So how exactly do you incentivize the audience when you have that much product? I don't know how. Do you think it's possible? It's why most shows don't do that because it's too hard and seriously just go do a survey of a bunch of wrestling fans at the moment and so many are saying man I'm just struggling to get into it at the moment. And that's because perfectly understandably you're a little bit burned out. Because if you do try and take it all in it's like a full-time job and I know that because it basically is my full-time job and I'm very lucky and I'm very blessed to be able to do it.

But sometimes you look at the calendar and you think to yourself how. And what do you even do nowadays to spark the revolution too. I mean AEW has already done it. The fact that they are competitive is absolutely brilliant. But even bringing in all of these stars hasn't really rocked the boat to any great extent, in the sense that WWE is still smashing it to the point because all their content is already paid for

You can have a build like the hell in a cell pay-per-view, a premium live event. Now actually when i sat down and watched it, it was great. But leading up to it, you could just tell well I don't think they care about it so why should i. I mean it's this attitude that's actually allowed them to give birth to nxt 2.0. Because they don't want to worry about the ratings anymore they just want to try and create the next wave of stars.

And given that we have said that word honestly, If RAW, Smackdown, Dynamite Rampage, don't do a number that people think it should do once again, It's just oh it's all crappy now. I mean why do you even care if you enjoyed the show just smile and move on so we are now living in a world we have to throw everything at the wall and hope that something sticks. This is one of the reasons why we're getting the forbidden door pay-per-view because there are literally two companies going oh I know what works dream matches will give you as many as possible. And you can't fault it because just go and look at the statistics and sense how quickly it sold out. The thing is even this has kind of become common territory now and I'm not complaining but it is the law of diminishing returns. I mean check out Will Osprey and his debut. Recently he just turned up and said hello, then he had a match on Rampage. Then he had a match on Dynamite and he was so good because he's one of the best wrestlers in the world. But if you had done that back in 2019 people would have had kittens and that's why I don't think you can get mad at this.

When it comes to wrestling, nothing is surprising anymore

Because it means we've had so many debuts and so many surprises including going to WWE like Cody Rhodes and you just sort of getting used to it. This doesn't tie directly into the fan base too i know because I'm one of them. But the passion that we care and we like to make a lot of loud noises but when we've been given such amazing presents when all of a sudden what a company has to do is go okay well this time we're just gonna have wrestler versus wrestler one's gonna win one of them's gonna lose and maybe want to win a championship.

It's a bit like oh is that it? Is that all you've got to offer me or at least there's always one person that goes well i know you gave me that but why wasn't it Kenny Omega versus Stone Cold. And you can laugh but i saw that on Twitter the other day, ultimately then if 2018 and 2019 were somewhat golden periods for wrestling, now things have settled down and you've honestly got to make a commitment because it's all about wrestler morale or there's ratings or there are wins and losses or there's work shoots. I mean you can't just dip your toe with wrestling anymore the water will just gobble up and say haha now this is everything we shouldn't complain though so i do apologize if i have been doing that because the fact we're getting something we love is the greatest thing ever.

Too focused on the sports entertainment product and putting it everywhere

But tv has done this before with other genres and it's always a dangerous tight rope to walk because basically executive c, oh man this wrestling thing that's getting hot let's make sure we have a program we'll put it there, we'll put it there, we'll put it there. And then there's too much so the interest dies down a bit and even though we pinged up to 10 now we've fallen back to four. So it's impossible to keep that enthusiasm up is what I'm saying. Because you're just a human being and this is totally okay. So rather than run yourself into the ground pick your moments my friends, pick your spots, if you need to take a couple of weeks off this is actually okay now. Because whether it is WWE, AEW, Impact, New Japan they're always trying to let you know what happened days ago. Because once again it's all about the right here right now. Mostly what I'm trying to tell you is that taking a break is okay. And it doesn't make you a bad person, and it doesn't make you a bad fan.

You always see these articles going well if you don't watch everything you don't deserve to call yourself a professional wrestling supporter. And that is gibberish you watch it to be entertained so figure out how that works best for you and go with it so maybe saying there's a major problem in wrestling is a little too strong but it is getting into some people's heads and when you know that's happening it's just time to say bye for wrestling for a little while but you won't be able to get away because what will happen is you'll do that and then a very powerful executive will have to step down from the board temporarily and you'll stare off into the distance and think to yourself why does wrestling never sleep I guess it's not tired yet.