This is not gonna be a "not like my favorite era" rant. I'm not talking about wrestling right now (although I am) but like wrestling as a whole. That's what I mean by boring. Like nobody gives a shit about amateur (real) wrestling. Literally no one. If you're a wrestling fan you know Kurt gold medal, Brock NCAA and then a few guys get referenced as having a "background"... basically collegiate wrestlers who never won big so they can't brag about it in hype videos. But they'll mention it because singlets?

Wrestling even when the marks thought it was real (or enough anyway) still relied on characters to bring people in. And as cat was let out of the bag, they started to more heavily rely on the entertainment stuff. Because that is what draws. Pure wrestling fans are loyal, but not large enough to go national with. Knowing it's fake, but having awesome moments and TV makes up for it. People tune in and when they shift to more in ring stuff, the public goes away.

Think of ROH. Pure wrestling. They still had good guys and bad guys. Storylines. But it was all centered on sports, but it didn't really draw any attention. It's hard to convince normies to get into it when you say it like that. And even then it was probably the stuff that most resembled goofy entertainment over a wrestling match. Think of the big moments when you ask about roh. They're probably thinking of CM Punk and the Joe trilogy. They don't remember a damn spot. Just the story behind it. Kenta and Joe in the ring and the crowd. Even when a match is the focal point it's never the work because all they did was chops! That's why Hogan/Andre and Hogan/Rock are remembered rightly or wrongly over better technical bouts. Oh yeah and Jay Briscoe hanging upside down and bleeding on Jimmy Jacobs. All sports entertainment goofiness.

Wrestling needs that. It always needed a little extra from regular sports. Now I'm sure sports do pull off entertainy stuff, but at the end the day it's a competition. That's enough to sell it. Take away all "sports entertainment" and just do matches (even if they're of the same quality of spotty goodness) with leaderboards and points and SPORTS. And nobody gonna be there for long. Don't believe me? Name the top 10 moments that happened in EVOLVE. You can't even name two. Maybe c could or something, but I'm betting most wrestling fans couldn't. Because even if you enjoy the work for itself on some level the most value must come from the elements that are sports entertainy. Austin bleeding out because you just don't see that. Hogan slamming Andre because under the umbrella of sports entertainment you bought into the story. Even those companies that were focused on the ring work generally got more eyes on it when they did stuff that wasn't just chain wrestling.

People will watch baseball to see a game. Wrestling will never get to that point. Obviously closer to the circus or cirdasole(whatever). They'll have an audience, and maybe see it every once in a while, but basing everything on just ringwork will never get enough regular people to tune in. It needs that something extra to compete. It was a necessary evil once the con was up. People knew it was fake because no one is gonna follow the damn circus like they would a sport. So they added heroes and villains. Backstage antics. If they included lockerroom run ins and refs being traitors maybe I'd like sports more. Anyway so I just wrote like 100 lines to get to this one point. Wrestling Matches. The holds. The strikes. The slams. The counters. Maneuvers. Victory decision. Catch wrestling is boring beyond a token viewing. Does that stank attach itself to professional wrestling matches to the public? Why could the actual sport never catch on? Is that the real reason it stopped being a shoot? Because it's like watching chess or bowling. Yes there's an audience but not a large one. Sports have a mass appeal, which is why wrestling always ducks and covers whenever big games are on tv.

Make of this thread what you will. It was suggested I post this next time I have one of those moments. My vote is yes since all my favorite moments cemented in the sports entertainment side. Blood, turns, extreme moments... all the little things a normal sporting thing can't have. Wrestling is so weird. It's a fake sport, but nobody ever cares about the sport itself.

If the matches aren't boring, why do you think they never caught on with the public? Is it all fakeness and legit cred? Once that was compromised it was hopeless to ever be considered serious from then on. Since there's no off season you have to keep it going and the only way to maintain interest is to have a story. Just gonna hit enter at this point because I clearly lost whatever one I had.

C does not watch Evolve <.<

Chikara easily had the moments take place in the ring though. Look at the saga of the Chikara special. First Hero beats Equinox by countering the CHIKARA special, a move that no one knew the counter to, forcing him to unmask. Then Carpenter Ant wins Cibernetico Increible with the Inverted Chikara Special, a move no one seen yet that had no counter. Then Donst locking in the Inverted Chikara Special on Quack during the Dark Cibernetico and Quack turning it into the Chikara Special to eliminate Donst. Then, Icarus locking in the Chikara Special on Kingston and Condor Security shutting down CHIKARA for over a year. When they came back Icarus would beat Kingstom with the Chikara Special, then later use it to counter the lethal Chokebreaker that Deucalion used, to submit him before using the Hammer of the Thunderfrog to kill Decalion in the middle of the ring. Before I stopped following Chikara, Kimberlee used the Chikara Special to pin Hallowicked and win the title after cashing in her golden ticket. The Whisper would later use it to become the first two time Rey de Voladores, proving his superiority over the Crucible by doing something Ophidian never could.  Whenever CHIKARA needs a hero to step up, they harassness the inner power of CHIKARA and gain the power of the CHIKARA Special

It isn't boring if you don't overload with wrestling on a weekly basis, if you just pick & choose what you want to watch it is fine. Unless your paid to watch it or report on it, I have no idea how people can find so much time to watch every little thing of both AEW & WWE and other feds like NJPW, Impact, MLW, ROH, NWA, AAA among others. You will just get burnt out watching too much wrestling and start to nitpick on it.

I strongly agree with almost everything @ness wrote. May be back later to elaborate.

No idea if these are gummy-fueled brilliance or just straight-up @ness, but I love his posts/threads like this.

I'm steeping in that first post.

Even as an amateur wrestler myself, I'll readily concede the real thing can get pretty boring. I'm sure spladle125 will begrudgingly agree to a degree. Honestly, I feel like that even extends a bit to MMA. UFC, etc. only seems to flourish thanks to those larger than life personalities. Probably same even goes for boxing.

Hmmm...

Part of the reason I ended up a CHIKARA fan and Deathmatch fan. Get bored seeing the same stuff week in and week out. Deathmatch shit you never know what those crazy psychopaths will come up with next and CHIKARA, well, the laws of wrestling do not apply always in a CHIKARA ring. Even still I get bored if people are not innovating though.

MMA I think made a brilliant move in limiting to five rounds. At the most a match can go 25 minutes, and a round can only go 5 minutes, so if you want to win, you need to get in and do something fast. Judges scoring weirdly at times, helps as well, since you never know if you will win if you let a judge score shit so grapple and hold is not a great tactic if you want to win consistently.

Yet another reason why Kenny Omega finally taking the title off Kazuchika Okada is one of the best things to ever happen in wrestling, and I feel sad for people that didn't get to experience it.

The entire story spanned two years and there was little to no story outside the ring. The entire arc was "Omega can't beat Okada." That's it. That's all it was on paper, and the rest of it played out in the ring.

They struck gold encased in platinum diamonds with that feud. I doubt I'll ever see a story like that again, although Hangman Page trying to get the AEW title off Omega is somewhat close (but of course they have to include a ton of other stuff because American audiences).

Two things have always stood out to me.

"It's not what you do, it's why you do it"

And,

"Workers today, think they can just do cool moves and that's enough"

And that sums up modern wrestling. Guys doing cool moves without context, reason or motive. Give people a reason to care, and a punch to the face can mean more than any "cruiserweight-combo #3468" or superkick party ever will.

It is not enough to just do moves for a purpose. The Joe vs Punk trilogy of four matches some consider one of the greatest series of matches in the modern era, but most of the matches were the two guys just using rest holds to try to wear out the other guy. Sure all the moves were logically done, but there was not much else to the matches until the last 10 minutes of each one.

The trilogy was FOUR matches!?!?

Rewatching Superstars with UT, the answer feels obvious. It's an overexposure problem. Getting nothing but squashes week after week makes something like Warrior vs. Nasty Boy #2 stand out as a great match.

The transition to "Superstar vs. Superstar" and then bloating to so many TV shows and a 3-hour RAW and so many PPVs makes the bygone days feel long gone.

It's both a moves thing and a making wins matter thing. The actually competitive matches were few and far between enough they could generally always hold your attention after weeks/months of jobber squashes. Now every match in every segment is a forced epic. And the 50/50 win-loss booking has long ago rendered results truly irrelevant.

Wins and losses in pro wrestling in the main stream probably haven't mattered since Undertaker's streak died or before that really, Goldberg's streak. And Goldberg was a phenomenon, as wins and losses had already stopped mattering in WWF since at least the screw job.

But speaking of the screw job, I'm reminded... It's still the finish that matters, really. It's why I struggle to think of any great WCW matches from the MNW era. Bischoff always mentions they struggled with finishes. Meanwhile, WWF with Pat could concoct great finishes. So they're fat with great matches in my memory. Even if all I'm really remembering most of the time is the finish.

Hmm...

Yeah, most people forget, but Joe beat Punk in 13 minutes at Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies.

Aug 1, 2021 13:29:11 GMT c said:

Yeah, most people forget, but Joe beat Punk in 13 minutes at Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies.

But then it's not a trilogy...

The match where Joe squashed Punk essentially was completely outside of the trilogy. I think it took place like a year prior. And I'm 99% two big indy stars like Joe and Punk have had other matches... doesn't mean it should be referenced together.

I mean Taker/Shawn had a dozen matches but we don't lump the Casket with their Mania classics...

Aug 1, 2021 2:24:19 GMT 🤯 said:

No idea if these are gummy-fueled brilliance or just straight-up @ness, but I love his posts/threads like this.

I'm steeping in that first post.

Even as an amateur wrestler myself, I'll readily concede the real thing can get pretty boring. I'm sure spladle125 will begrudgingly agree to a degree. Honestly, I feel like that even extends a bit to MMA. UFC, etc. only seems to flourish thanks to those larger than life personalities. Probably same even goes for boxing.

Hmmm...

If you are watching two defensive who constantly stall then absolutely it is. However if your the one walking on that mat there is no bigger rush than before that whistle blows.

Aug 1, 2021 14:10:59 GMT spladle125 said:

Aug 1, 2021 2:24:19 GMT 🤯 said:

No idea if these are gummy-fueled brilliance or just straight-up @ness, but I love his posts/threads like this.

I'm steeping in that first post.

Even as an amateur wrestler myself, I'll readily concede the real thing can get pretty boring. I'm sure spladle125 will begrudgingly agree to a degree. Honestly, I feel like that even extends a bit to MMA. UFC, etc. only seems to flourish thanks to those larger than life personalities. Probably same even goes for boxing.

Hmmm...

If you are watching two defensive who constantly stall then absolutely it is. However if your the one walking on that mat there is no bigger rush than before that whistle blows.

Duh on the latter point. But that's totally moot. Audience will never know what that feeling is like.

God, I used to hate stall fests. Even if I was guilty of it on occasion.

We turning this into a high school wrestling thread? Because let's go. I got a story or two I left off in my pro wrestling tribute chapters.

Yes wrestling is boring.

Sports Entertainment is where it's truly at.

As far as why matches didn't catch on with the mainstream, I think it's like the Globetrotters where there's only so many tricks until the public have seen everything. Since it's an illegitimate sport it doesn't evoke that same sense of tribalism that real sports do so it's shelf life is extremely limited. It's why fans tend to age out of Pro Wrestling very early on.

As far as the in-ring goes, it depends on the performer. A lot of guys do nothing for me because they're clearly not great athletes. However if you get a Brock Lesnar - this real freak of nature - in the ring then you've got my attention. Same deal with Ronda Rousey when she came over, Kurt Angle and while not an athlete Sabu was one of those human car wrecks that you just had to see.

As RT pointed out, NJPW pre-COVID was one of the most successful promotions in the world and it was largely built on the action. I do think the in-ring lends itself to story-telling, just like sport usually relies on rookie sensations like Patrick Mahomes or controversy like Deflate Gate to help draw interest and create these heroes and villains.

Aug 1, 2021 3:27:36 GMT c said:

Part of the reason I ended up a CHIKARA fan and Deathmatch fan. Get bored seeing the same stuff week in and week out. Deathmatch shit you never know what those crazy psychopaths will come up with next and CHIKARA, well, the laws of wrestling do not apply always in a CHIKARA ring. Even still I get bored if people are not innovating though.

MMA I think made a brilliant move in limiting to five rounds. At the most, a match can go 25 minutes, and around can only go 5 minutes, so if you want to win, you need to get in and do something fast. Judges scoring weirdly at times, help as well since you never know if you will win if you let a judge score shit so grapple and hold is not a great tactic if you want to win consistently.

YEP. I got tired of ROH after a while. That's what led me to check out Chikara. Wrestling has never bored me. There are so many different styles.

Really hope CHIKARA returns when the pandemic ends. Quack is training and he is active on youtube, so things look good but never know if people will cling to the MeToo stuff or not, despite how lame what he was attacked for was in retrospect. Then again Marty still has a nuclear heat, so who knows. If CHIKARA is truly dead then it is just a matter of time before Quack becomes an NXT trainer. The girls in WWE will go to bat for him.

I'm at the point where I've wondered if c is Quack.

Then again his posts are half as condescending as hearing Quack speak...

I hope CHIKARA stays dead and buried. And any wrestler who sees Quack try to enter a locker room should stomp on his balls and throw him out.

Aug 2, 2021 5:42:20 GMT KITN said:

I hope CHIKARA stays dead and buried. And any wrestler who sees Quack tries to enter a locker room should stomp on his balls and throw him out.

Now, I wanna see Chikara TRULY return. First, for my enjoyment. Secondarily to make you mad. :lol:

Aug 2, 2021 5:42:20 GMT KITN said:

I hope CHIKARA stays dead and buried. And any wrestler who sees Quack try to enter a locker room should stomp on his balls and throw him out.

Careful, c. KITN wants your balls stomped!

Don't get me wrong, I used to love Chikara. Chikara was the first indie wrestling I ever saw live and it was what I made an attempt to see every time they came to my state, even as a baby-ass middle schooler. Chikara inspired my one-time desire to become a professional wrestler. It didn't work out, but eh. I loved Chikara more than just about any wrestling company I could think of for years.

But all of the allegations of abuse and predation of those that were trainers for Chikara and SPECIFICALLY of Quack himself have permanently stained the company for me. I don't want it back anymore. I want it to stay gone. Requiescat in pace.

Aug 2, 2021 21:40:43 GMT 🤯 said:

Aug 2, 2021 5:42:20 GMT KITN said:

I hope CHIKARA stays dead and buried. And any wrestler who sees Quack try to enter a locker room should stomp on his balls and throw him out.

Careful, c . KITN wants your balls stomped!

I'm on the fuck chikara train, but I'll buy a ticket to that particular Chikara match.

People like to root for their favorites in stories. The good guys. The home team. Pro wrestling is the perfect marriage of sport and story. Sports journalists find the stories in sports and bring them to lives. The characters end up being our favorites.

A few weeks ago a kid who's maybe a year or two in worked a match in front of an audience that had never seen him before. It was an outdoor show at a bar. They did some cool stuff and had a technically sound match. The crowd sat on their hands. He came up to me after the show and said "They HATED that tonight." Mechanically and from a move execution stance, it was probably the strongest match of the night. The heel came out smug and arrogant. The babyface (the kid who talked to me) was trying to act like the cool bad ass. They didn't really work the crowd in the match from what I recall. It got me thinking. If they don't care who you are, they don't care what you're doing. He didn't take the time to teach the fans that he was the good guy and connect with them so they would be happy for him when he succeeded or feel bad for him when the heel stole the win. It's all about being invested in the characters and the personalities. My Grandma was a Cubs' fan. I loved my Grandma, so I'm a Cubs fan. It's about connection and loyalty. A couple old guys at work were making fun of me for liking wrestling then went on a rant about how great Verne Gagne, Nick Bockwinkel, and Dick the Bruiser were. Because those were the personalities that connected with them.

Wrestling is boring. Baseball would be boring if you didn't have a vested interest in who won or lost. Imagine they played nine inninngs and randomized who was playing on which team each inning. One team in red jerseys and another in blue. They changed the teams each inning. You wouldn't care.

UFC is a classic example of getting it right. 

I remember way back in the day, UFC was just breaking. This is beyond the late 1990 stuff. It was boring. A lot of forgettable fighters in generic shorts rolling around on the mat for 20 minutes. Then the showmanship started to be incorporated into the show. It wasn't jazz-hands and jumping jacks - but there was character development, emotion, drama and what better way to capture this than TUF. And eventually we get to the Conor McGregor types, in which fights can be sold on personality alone. 

Wrestling is about charisma. And you can project that though your promos, your matches and interactions and how a character works or responses to a spot, or simply having a presence. It's the X-factor that sells tickets.  

Aug 2, 2021 22:14:56 GMT KITN said:

Don't get me wrong, I used to love Chikara. Chikara was the first indie wrestling I ever saw live and, it was what I attempted to see every time they came to my state, even as a baby-ass middle schooler. Chikara inspired my one-time desire to become a professional wrestler. It didn't work out, but eh. I loved Chikara more than just about any wrestling company I could think of for years.

But all of the allegations of abuse and predation of those that were trainers for Chikara and SPECIFICALLY of Quack himself have permanently stained the company for me. I don't want it back anymore. I want it to stay gone. Requiescat in pace.

I mean, you're right but, I'm just saying that behavior wasn't just about Chikara but indy wrestling as a whole.

Aug 2, 2021 22:14:56 GMT KITN said:

Don't get me wrong, I used to love Chikara. Chikara was the first indie wrestling I ever saw live and it was what I made an attempt to see every time they came to my state, even as a baby-ass middle schooler. Chikara inspired my one-time desire to become a professional wrestler. It didn't work out, but eh. I loved Chikara more than just about any wrestling company I could think of for years.

But all of the allegations of abuse and predation of those that were trainers for Chikara and SPECIFICALLY of Quack himself have permanently stained the company for me. I don't want it back anymore. I want it to stay gone. Requiescat in pace.

Ok I'll bite, what exactly was Quack accused of doing directly?  Because the way I saw it, is Wiggy was upset Quack called her The Ratiri when she was sleeping with Kobalt and blasted Quack for shit other people did.  Joey Janela summed it up well though.  If Wiggy was involved with CHIKARA and all this shit was happening, why was she just reporting it now after she learned Quack called her a rat seven years prior?   

I will side with Quack on this because he admitted to what he did.  He was narcissist for a while and really only thought of CHIKARA.  He used locker room language in the locker room which people are not really ok with people using anymore.  He admitted to sleeping with two people who worked for CHIKARA, neither of which were fans.  He also apologized for shit that happened at the school he was not aware of and his record goes against the accusations.  As soon as Wiggy let him know about Kobald, he fired Kobald like he did Blaster McMassive and Rory Gulak prior.  Literally within 3 hours of Wiggy posting her original tweet Quack fired Kobald.  Gulak was fired while many people were still booking him for sending girls creepy text messages, and Blaster was in Evolve when Quack fired him for calling a fan a rat on twitter.  

At least one of the accusations, the girl who was supposedly deliberately injured, was discredited by other students.  The accessor who said Quack was chasing girls told an interesting story.  Quack was caught by his wife sleeping around with Saturyne leading to their divorce.  What was not mentioned was the rest of this story.  That was his wife being half owner of CHIKARA forced him to shutdown the fed, which Quack deceptively countered by starting various Wrestling Is feds before reviving CHIKARA a year later.  This was a fucking work being reported as a #metoo thing.

What I find most amusing is at the end of the day, what Quack was cancelled for was allowing Chris Hero to treat the wrestlers like total shit.  But a few black lines and no one putting together the dates, Hero takes none of the blame, only Quack.  

Also looking up stuff to check dates, found out Alex Reynolds was combatANT and John Silver the Shard.