Not long after playing the game I was hooked on pro wrestling, it reacted well with my Wild imagination and love for a good storyline with drama and fun. It wasn't long until I bought my first wrestling video from a charity shop the title read WCW Spring Stampede 1999 the WCW video showed me what a real wrestling show looked like and what effort went into it. Soon after this I bought my first wrestling DVD called WWE Armageddon 2006 which revealed to me how dangerous pro wrestling can be, this was emphasised when I saw a four way ladder match, in which one of the ladders slashed and broke the nose of a wrestler called Joey Mercury (he walked away luckily), this event showed me pro wrestling isn't as fake as people think it is, accidents do happen in pro wrestling and they do get hurt.
Usually childhood fads dissolve as soon as you enter high school, but my love for pro wrestling stayed strong and spent most of my money on wrestling DVDs, the newest wrestling video games and any old wrestling video I could find (I liked the old school stuff). During this time started delving into other promotions like Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, Ring of honour even Pro Wrestling Guerilla.
After watching other wrestling promotions I became a fan of all wrestling not just WWE's brand. What stood out to me the most was that alot of the low budget promotions were putting out better quality shows than the higher budget promotions. The supposed lower tier talent was simply out shinning brighter than the higher tier talent, why? maybe because they're working harder and are listening and interacting with the crowd, they do this so the audience feels involved with match; and if they don't entertain the crowd they don't get paid, period.
Soon I became aware the WWE was losing their loyal fan base from the 90's and early 2000's that stuck with them in the ratings war with WCW. All of these former WWE fans simply turned to other promotions that could meet their desires, like TNA wrestling with its six-sided ring and unique x-division roster that was filled with high flyers and martial art experts. Other fans simply wanted to see straight up pro wrestling, so they went to watch promotions like ROH that provide pure old school wrestling in small arenas and PWG in local events in the U.S and Europe.
A lot of these smaller promotion follow the legendary path of Extreme Championship Wrestling, a 90's promotion that went against the grain and began the chants of EC-DUB! and F**K THE WORLD. This promotion tried to fight the system and be different from all of the other wrestling promotions at the time. ECW held their own with a cult like following of fans that were proud to throw chairs into the ring. The strongest x-factor that ECW had against the other promotions was crowd participation, allowing the fans to hand wrestlers weapons to use on each other allowed them to be apart of the show. But sadly the company went under and was dissolved in 2000 but WWE did resurrect it for a short while in 2006 but then it was replaced with WWE's rookie show NXT.
Other promotions have tried to follow ECW and claim the mantle of the most hardcore wrestling promotion, and the strongest contender has been Combat Zone Wrestling or CZW for short. A lot of the higher tier talent seen on TV today began in CZW like CM Punk and Dean Ambrose. Unlike ECW though CZW has it own brand of hardcore dubbed Ultra-violence which usually consists of tables, ladders, glass, thumb tacks, light tubes and even fire. The matches get so violent that even the referees have to wear gloves and padded clothing to protect them selves. CZW have made it their mission to follow in ECW's footsteps, but even ECW knew their limits and always valued their safety, sadly CZW is simply unadulterated violence and its incredibly dangerous, this frustrates me because it takes away the story lines and drama that pro wrestling should always have.
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These days you can find many styles of pro wrestling around the world through the internet, but what has really impressed me is Japanese pro wrestling or puroresu. What make this style different is that in Japan they still view pro wrestling as a sport.
One of the main rules in puroresu is you can't pull your punches or kicks, so any attack a wrestler makes is real and actually connects with their opponent; most matches end with the competitors having visible bruises and possible bleeding.
I love wrestling for the drama and story but I must admit this style was a breath of fresh of air to me, instead of going extreme hardcore they've gone with a completely competitive nature and replacing the drama with a 'there can only be one winner mentality'. In addition to the competition narrative, due to Japanese perfectionism if a wrestler botches a move or a sequence of moves, they have a percentage taken away from their paycheck for the match. As harsh as the payment/performance system sounds it does in fact guarantee perfect fluid matches and its very rare to see mistakes in any puroresu event.
When it all comes down to it, the basic objective of true pro wrestling is to entertain the crowd, and it saddens me to see today's biggest promotions starting to lose sight of that. One of the the biggest culprits is none other than World Wrestling Entertainment, they been riding the money train since their success of the Attitude era.This was the time of The Rock, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The 90's were filled with legendary rivalries and innovative matches like the inferno match and hell in a cell.
Soon after beating WCW in the Monday night wars the company suddenly hit golden period and still growing today with their newly released WWE Network, but the problem is that they're only worrying about what can make them more money and not actually listening to their own audience. Since WWE has gone PG they have lost their loyal fan base and are failing to string together proper matches that contain actual grit and seriousness to them (so they won't scare the kiddies).
They constantly keep putting their faith (and main events) in their old wrestlers and over used wrestlers like Triple H, Randy Orton and John Cena but not giving that top spot to wrestler more deserving like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan even Adrian Neville.
I do have a lot of respect for John Cena, he's carried a company on his back for 8 whole years but now he's become another over worked poster boy (another Hulk Hogan). When John Cena started out he was rebellious, out spoken and cocky but then he became everybody's favourite and now he has been made the only wrestler fans are allowed like.
Even though WWE has grown way too big for its own good, it still is a promotion that puts out good entertainment even if its just story lines they've recycled from the 90's but still good entertainment all the same. This is a great indicator that wrestling promotions need to be more careful and not to lose themselves in the glory and remember the people who got them the glory and remember that it was the fans of pro wrestling that were responsible for their accomplishments. These huge wrestling promotions need to know that their loyal fans are becoming frustrated with the direction the bigger promotions are going in, and they will continue to support the smaller promotions that are still in touch with the crowd and I for one shall join them.
These days you can find many styles of pro wrestling around the world through the internet, but what has really impressed me is Japanese pro wrestling or puroresu. What make this style different is that in Japan they still view pro wrestling as a sport.
One of the main rules in puroresu is you can't pull your punches or kicks, so any attack a wrestler makes is real and actually connects with their opponent; most matches end with the competitors having visible bruises and possible bleeding.
I love wrestling for the drama and story but I must admit this style was a breath of fresh of air to me, instead of going extreme hardcore they've gone with a completely competitive nature and replacing the drama with a 'there can only be one winner mentality'. In addition to the competition narrative, due to Japanese perfectionism if a wrestler botches a move or a sequence of moves, they have a percentage taken away from their paycheck for the match. As harsh as the payment/performance system sounds it does in fact guarantee perfect fluid matches and its very rare to see mistakes in any puroresu event.
When it all comes down to it, the basic objective of true pro wrestling is to entertain the crowd, and it saddens me to see today's biggest promotions starting to lose sight of that. One of the the biggest culprits is none other than World Wrestling Entertainment, they been riding the money train since their success of the Attitude era.This was the time of The Rock, The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Stone Cold Steve Austin. The 90's were filled with legendary rivalries and innovative matches like the inferno match and hell in a cell.Soon after beating WCW in the Monday night wars the company suddenly hit golden period and still growing today with their newly released WWE Network, but the problem is that they're only worrying about what can make them more money and not actually listening to their own audience. Since WWE has gone PG they have lost their loyal fan base and are failing to string together proper matches that contain actual grit and seriousness to them (so they won't scare the kiddies).
They constantly keep putting their faith (and main events) in their old wrestlers and over used wrestlers like Triple H, Randy Orton and John Cena but not giving that top spot to wrestler more deserving like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan even Adrian Neville.I do have a lot of respect for John Cena, he's carried a company on his back for 8 whole years but now he's become another over worked poster boy (another Hulk Hogan). When John Cena started out he was rebellious, out spoken and cocky but then he became everybody's favourite and now he has been made the only wrestler fans are allowed like.
Even though WWE has grown way too big for its own good, it still is a promotion that puts out good entertainment even if its just story lines they've recycled from the 90's but still good entertainment all the same. This is a great indicator that wrestling promotions need to be more careful and not to lose themselves in the glory and remember the people who got them the glory and remember that it was the fans of pro wrestling that were responsible for their accomplishments. These huge wrestling promotions need to know that their loyal fans are becoming frustrated with the direction the bigger promotions are going in, and they will continue to support the smaller promotions that are still in touch with the crowd and I for one shall join them.
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