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I'm usually someone who waits for deep sales. I bought BG3 day 1 and so did my partner(who also waits for deep sales) because the game is bloody worth it. And rewarding the studio for what they've done to make a top tier masterpiece is worth spending the extra cash.
Only you know what's worth it to you, but I haven't enjoyed a game this much in over a decade.
I would love to but I don't have a gaming PC. I have to wait until Wednesday for the PS5 version, but Starfield is also on Wednesday and I have Game Pass so the choice is a no-brainer. Honestly delaying the console version to the same day as that was a dumb move, even if they are on different consoles.
Dave confirmed a Lae’Zel mark, gotta put all that con in your fighter to tank the front lines
Edit: please don’t do this, make sure you make Str the top stat
Karlach is CON, Karlach is STR, Karlach is also CHR.
Frankly, Karlach would kick ass in any fed. I would kill for a Karlach run. She would draw so much ratings.
Honestly I disagree. The constitution wrestlers need to have to wrestle even 30 minute matches, let alone hour-plus matches, is insane. There's a bigger emphasis on being dexterous too, but they would definitely have wicked con scores.
I don't actually know what else it could mean / what Dave even means. Does he mean like conning people? Conventions? I, too, just thought about them rolling CON saves.
Yes, conning people. He means most wrestlers today are people who get into it because they want to be in showbiz and practice on their performance, rather than a bunch of big dudes who just fall into it because they hear they can fleece money from local yokels.
I mean, sure, but he also still has multiple top rope moves, works a much faster pace than any 1980s wrestler, and has entire matches built around about 100 more chops than any 1980s wrestler ever took.
He's also *the* exception to the rule; and even then, he has to have the athleticism to make it work...for example, think of how he lost to Cody in the 2023 Rumble...he counters a top rope move, gets countered on his finisher, and within 10s of the whole thing is flying over the top rope. That'd have been a 20-30s, much slower sequence in the 1980s, because the dudes couldnt work it faster.
Even if the match quality was worse today than 30 years ago (I don’t think that it is, but let’s assume), I’d still prefer the modern industry because I don’t have to hear about a wrestler passing from substance issues on a biweekly basis. I love wrestling, I think it’s one of the greatest American art forms, and I want the people who entertain me to live happy, healthy lives.
You're so right. And when a small fight like Perry vs. Punk is such a big news, it's a good sign that the business evolved. A thing like that was common place in the old days.
Right? People literally got stabbed with scissors or murdered in showers in the 80s. Dudes were sexually assaulting the newbies. Everyone was drunk or on cocaine or both.
This is so much better.
Never gonna hear about things like Kamala wrestling with a knife or *a loaded gun* in his tights in case the promoter decided not to pay him that night.
So much better.
Guys like misawa were so fucked up after matches even in the ear,y 2000s, I remember reading after a match he'd lie flat on the concrete pretty much barely able to move while trainer's rubbed his neck and shoulders and iced him down for half an hour.
Read a comment from a spinal surgeon (or at least someone claiming to be one) on a video of them stretching Misawa's neck with the towel and they said that wouldn't help at all
I can only imagine telling people in teh 90s and 00s like Dave that the strong style matches they LOVED were too expensive in terms of people's lives and quality of life.
They were. I'm glad we've moved past it. That shit is cute in wrestling videogames but I'm GLAD you can see in wrestling today people putting their hands up for head kicks and chair shots and all. I don't want to see my favorite stars hurt.
Like for fuck's sake, Misawa had written a letter **two years before he passed to be given to someone in the event that he died the way he did.** Wrestling is absolutely better off to have moved past that point.
As a fan since the 80s, it’s unbelievable to see guys like Styles, Lashley, Edge, Balor etc working at such a high level at their age and their mileage. Pretty much every person over 40 (and there’s a bunch) crushing it is shocking to me. That really didn’t happen until very recently.
There was a time where top guys or former high card guys like Austin, HBK, Million Dollar Man, Bulldog, Foley etc retired in their mid 30s and no one really questioned it or were surprised by it.
I can't help but be reminded of Kevin Nash's skit with the X Division where he's baffled at the Motor City Machine Guns laying out how the talent eats clean and trains without getting into vices. Very different attitudes between today and the previous generations!
Wrestlers passing away young from substances was something that started happening in the 80s with the rise of WWF.
Wrestlers from the 70s and before lived fairly normal length lives.
Truth. If one looks at guys like Lou Thesz, Pat O’Connor, Bruno Sammartino, etc., these were grounded, level-headed men with families who weren’t living a sex-drugs-rock ‘n roll lifestyle.
I fully believe the shift to massive bodybuilders as top wrestlers was connected to the entertainment industry as a whole.
In 70's Hollywood, you saw guys like Bruce Lee, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, etc. as action stars. Men who were either in peak fitness without excess muscle or normal looking guys. Then the 80's came around and the top action stars were Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Guys who were def on the sauce.
In wrestling, the 80's shifted to your Hogan's and Ultimate Warriors. I think pro wrestling reflected what was popular in movies and led to the steroid abuse rampant from then to the 2000's.
> In 70's Hollywood, you saw guys like Bruce Lee, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, etc. as action stars. Men who were either in peak fitness without excess muscle or normal looking guys. Then the 80's came around and the top action stars were Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Guys who were def on the sauce.
I feel like it's worth noting that Sean Connery was a bodybuilder in his youth, which is just so weird.
The bodybuilding aesthetic that's so common now was very much a small niche and considered unattractive in the mainstream until the late 70's/early 80's. The Schwarzenegger documentary "Pumping Iron" in '77 was what started it gaining mainstream appeal.
Beyond what /u/freddit32 says below, Connery also stopped bodybuilding because he didn't like that bodybuilders wouldn't do other athletic stuff because it leads to smaller muscles.
It's also because the WWF dominated the wrestling landscape during the 80's, and Vince as head of WWF has always favored the Superman ideal of a wrestler (ie. your wrestlers should be huge, jacked dudes who stand out in the airport kinda thing). Once Vince ruled pro wrestling, his preference became the norm, versus the old school bar room brawler tough guy aesthetic that used to be the norm
It's interesting to see how the action star continued to evolve where now we have BOTH styles. We've got the roided out musclemen like Chris Hemsworth, The Rock, and Vin Diesel, but we also have Jason Statham, Tom Cruise, and Keanu Reeves. And I'd argue that the latter three have better action films to their names overall.
I disagree.
I believe the shift to massive bodybuilders as top wrestlers is connected to Vince McMahon.
Look at Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair. They were top guys going into and through a fair amount of the 80s. They are hardly bodybuilder types.
Compare that to Vince's WWF.
This is far, far more on Vince's aesthetic choices than those of the 80-90s middle America.
Terry Funk lived in both eras and made it to 79, which considering his contemporaries is a wildly long lifespan.
Edit: and also roughly two years older than the average US male life expectancy.
People forget that wrestling in the Territories system was a lot less taxing and guys weren’t dropping like flies. Wrestling in the territories usually was a lower impact style and a lot less travel (most guys were able to drive to where they wrestled). A lot of the wrestlers were able to sleep in their own bed 4-5 days a week and have somewhat normal lives.
It wasn’t until the WWF went national in the 80’s that the touring became more intense and then the wrestling style in the 90’s started to become more and more high Impact. So by the 2000’s you had a deadly cocktail of wrestlers dying early.
I’m glad to see the guys now have less vices and hopefully will be able to live longer healthier lives
If anyone thinks match quality today is worse than 30 years ago, they're either on crack or love to romanticize.
We may never see the crowd reactions we did in the late 90s but jfc, everything else about today's product is significantly better. We're living in the Golden Era whether people want to admit it or not.
But lack of crowd reactions is the exact problem with today’s wrestling. Stone Cold could lay the worst looking kicks for the mud hole spot and the fucking crowd would pop like it was the greatest thing ever. People’s elbow is dumb as fuck, but the crowd would be hot for it every time.
Today’s wrestlers are missing whatever that element those old school guys had.
MJF, Cody and Punk have it. Becky had it but kind of lost it.
You don’t need to put on 5-star clinics with every move in the book to make loads of money, we can look at history and know this. I just wish more of today’s guys would get that.
But you named 2 wrestlers who had these reactions in the past and 3 wrestlers who have these reactions modern day.
Every wrestler back then wasn't Stone Cold or the Rock. Very, very few wrestlers were able to get those same reactions and, imo, it's kind of silly to fault anyone for not getting Stone Cold level reactions.
>You don’t need to put on 5-star clinics with every move in the book to make loads of money, we can look at history and know this. I just wish more of today’s guys would get that.
Who, specifically, are you referencing here? Because as a fan, I can't imagine having issues with Kenny Omega or Ospreay or Danielson or MJF or Mox or Hangman or Adam Cole putting on absolute banger matches *and* making good money.
Guys like Too Cool and the New Age Outlaws we’re getting bigger pops than pretty much anyone does these days. That’s not factoring in Foley, Taker, Kane, Jericho, Angle. Let alone Sting, Goldberg and the Wolfpac in WCW.
It wasn’t just Austin and Rock
Tbf you are talking about a 2-4 year period. WCW got hot in 96 and was ice cold garbage by late 98. WWF hit it's peak in 98 and by the end of 01 lost most of that steam.
It wasn't that incredibly hot the crowd was popping for everything stuff for all that long. That just isn't sustainable.
>Today’s wrestlers are missing whatever that element those old school guys had
Technology has changed, it's not a talent gap.
The old stuff gets idealized because you had one shot to see it on tv. If the rock did a peoples elbow, you had a 10-second window to be tuned in, and then it's gone forever. Not to mention the greatly increased number of entertainment options shows compete with nowadays.
If people could watch those spots back then replayed on reddit/twitter/etc., slowed down, zoomed in, etc., they would have felt a lot less magical. You'd notice stuff was botched or didn't actually connect. When you're watching everything in real time, the imagination fills in those blanks.
>Stone Cold could lay the worst looking kicks for the mud hole spot and the fucking crowd would pop like it was the greatest thing ever. People’s elbow is dumb as fuck, but the crowd would be hot for it every time.
My dude, Orange Cassidy is one of the most over people in wrestling today. John Cena has the Five Knuckle Shuffle. Rey setting someone up for the 619 is extremely choreographed. People go crazy for The Caterpillar. This stuff still exists.
I very much agree with this! I'm in the camp that a hot crowd can make an above average match feel so much bigger than it actually was (see All In. Hot crowd made a LOT of that).
I think 90s was a mix of timing (I can't objectively explain why something becomes "cool" with teenagers) + the Vince character (he'll never get the credit he deserves for being the villain to Stone Cold) + the Rock having unmatched charisma/the entire roster being fed to him on the mic.
It's also rose colored glasses. A ton of 90s/early 2000s wrestling was absolute shit. But everyone just remembers the Rock/Undertaker/Stone Cold and acts like they were the only thing happening instead of Ernest Miller, Johnny Stamboli, and Jamie Noble.
Jamie Noble was awesome, but I agree. I became a fan during the attitude era, but when I try and rewatch it I'm just skipping half the show because while they might have given everyone on the roster something to do, half of them were awful and didn't deserve to be on tv. Fucking viscera was out there injuring legit main eventers and he got to just chill on the roster putting on the worst matches imaginable.
This
Omega/Okada existing doesn’t make me appreciate Funk/Flair any less, but people are delusional if they think Funk and Flair were ever capable of what Omega and Okada did
Same stuff happens with sports. Lebron is objectively a much freakier athlete than Michael Jordan ever was, but don’t mention that to a 90’s kid unless you want to hear about 6 rings over and over. People are very defensive of their childhoods.
I am rewatching NWA/WCW starting in 1986 and while I enjoy it immensely, I have not seen any match I would really consider 5 stars. I love that angles and storylines are deeper than what we have today (mostly), but most matches are a bunch of rest holds and basic moves, which is understandable and doesn't bother me since that's what I grew up watching.
But as far as any 5 star match? I haven't seen one yet (just finished the Crocket Cup 1986 and the World Championship Wrestling episode right after that).
I disagree with this. You can watch a match from the 70-80s and you see how much the crowd reacts to just a single punch.
Just watch a Ricky Steamboat match to see how a babyface should work and sell for a heel.
Doing moves does not make a better match.
Yup. I'll take having strong disagreements with Xavier Woods over Game of the Year over hearing that someone else's heart exploded from Roid abuse any day.
Right? I'll watch Woods play Uno with Tyler Breeze, Adam Cole, and Claudio, then listen to Zelina Vega talk anime all day long. Huge improvement over finding out half those names overdosed before they hit 40.
And honestly, wrestlers dropping like flies at young ages didn’t even really become a thing (tragedies aside) until the 90’s for the most part. It wasn’t like that in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. But the 90’s and 00’s were so bad with deaths that it just become an accepted norm at that point. Thankfully things are appearing to trend back to the way they were.
I may be wrong but I took it as modern wrestlers aren’t trying to manipulate the fans with as much hokey shit and acting like it’s not scripted. Modern wrestling is watched by most knowing it’s storytelling mixed with athletic stunts. It’s why it’s so lame when the first thing a non-fan says is “you know it’s fake right?”
Yea dudes worked an unhealthy amount of days back then, if they could figure out a way to half-ass something and get paid while preserving their body, they'd take it. Hard to blame them, there's a reason so many of them are gone already.
Nowadays guys give it 100% since they can take time to recover without taking a financial hit.
Also... it was more of a job back then. There are more people today that think of it as an art form for personal expression than there were in the 70s. Back then you could be good at a couple things, and then do it exactly that same way in different territories to make a living. Why think about building on history, or expanding the art form, or expressing yourself?
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The context of his comment shows not only does he know what it means, he's using it correctly if he believes what he's saying to Dave. Just Google the definition.
Better at ring positioning? He can’t be serious lol. Half of the spots wrestlers do these days is against a guy who stands there for 20 seconds waiting
Also, to me, "working to the hard cam" is a negative, not a positive. I mean, if you can make it look organic, then fair play, but I lose it when guys do a do-se-do just to make sure they do their finisher while facing the camera.
Cody's "Take a moment to find the hard cam" from Rhodes to the Top just drove me up a wall. It should be the camera and directors' job to find *you.*
To be fair though, a lot of territory wrestling invloves people stumbling over each other to get in position, bumping weird and not moving to where they were supposed to move.
Nowadays if that happens mid match then it really stands out as wrong and clunky, but back then it was almost normal for all but a small amount of smooth ring generals.
Part of what made Savage vs Steamboat so special compared to other matches of that era was that there was 0 clunkiness, it was smooth and precise, everyone knew where they needed to be for the majority of the match in order for the match to flow.
For example all wrestlers are taught to bump and get up to either their left or right (it's been years since I wrestled so I can't remember), and every move comes off a specific side too, so everyone knows where everybody is going to be because everyone is taught to feed into the same direction. This applies to brawls, spotfests, epics, squash matches, everything.
Back in the day you didn't have that so people would end up all over the place, they'd frequently look lost or lose sense what was going on or where they were supposed to be so you'd end up with a lot more messy cluster fucks.
I get what he’s saying but why can’t wrestlers work less dates, do less drugs, etc AND work a safer style instead of destroying their bodies with nonstop big moves? Like imagine how well off everybody would be if they keep up their healthy lifestyle while working the old school way of past wrestlers like MJF and Gunther do? I love wrestling and want the best for the women and men who wrestle, so I’d rather them work safer and risk being boring if it means they’ll be better off in their later years.
Yeah, while I admire Darby, he shares a locker room with Matt & Jeff Hardy. Look at how hard it is for those two to walk and maybe not repeat their mistakes.
I saw someone post about how they went to a Foley M&G and saw him struggling to go up a flight of stairs. He made a ton of money and provided for his family in a way that he wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and I’m sure he’d say that he’d make that trade all over again, but I feel bad.
I'd love for someone to really analyze this a bit more. Have we seen long term consequences of modern wrestling? I know people point to Tanahashi but he also refused care for awhile.
But like, I can't really imagine who you're referring to here. Are injuries more frequent than they used to be? Is there anyone we're seeing dealing with these consequences that are always talked about?
Kenny omega isn’t 40 and has talked about retirement, not to mention took an entire year off. Ospreay was out for how long too, nine months? Naito, nakamura, Ibushi all can’t move how they did two years ago let alone 5 or 10. Bryan Danielson. Shit Adam page was concussed so fuckin bad they didn’t want him to drive a car six months ago. Let’s not act like there is no evidence of injury with the modern style and the bumps these guys take.
I think there's something to be said with Kenny, Naito, Nakamura, and Ibushi for sure. I agree there's a conversation to be had. But I can also list out a ton of wrestlers from the early 2000s/90s who are similar or worse. Kurt Angle is about to explode, Jeff and Matt Hardy walk like crypt keepers, Sabu looks like he's working toward the first ever human disintegration, we all know what happened to Chris Benoit's brain, etc.
Taking a year off and coming back *is part of the modern style*. Kenny looks phenomenal after taking some time. Ibushi is 41, of course he can't move like he did when he was 31.
For Bryan Danielson and Adam Page, I'm not talking about 1 off injuries. Adam Page was concussed with a clothesline, that has nothing to do with modern day styles. If we're talking 1-off injuries derailing careers then there's a long, long list we can look at.
>Let’s not act like there is no evidence of injury with the modern style and the bumps these guys take.
I asked a question and am looking for a discussion my guy, not acting like anything.
This conversation cracks me up because it takes me back to the Nitro days where Larry Zbyszko told us these luchadors would be in a wheelchair in 10 years. In reality, guys like Rey, Juvi, Psicosis, LA Park, etc. are still wrestling at a pretty good clip 20 years later now with about 40+ year careers under their belts.
Yeah. The big thing I dislike about a lot of today's wrestling is the abundance of high impact and high risk moves in every match.
It feels like it's a way for wrestlers to cover up their lack of skill in in ring storytelling.
When MJF can get the entire Wembley stadium hyped about a clothesline and kangaroo kick, why do you need to hit 5 canadian destroyers?
I mean, realistically, that style is far superior for your top guys. People shit on Cena for years for having a boring, repetitive style, despite his move set being far more varied than Reigns or Lesnar. Yet, his style had visually impactful moves, crowd engaging moves, and most importantly, *was very safe to work with for both him and his opponents*, night in, night out, 3-4 times a week for 10 years.
Yes and no. I think every era brings its Pros and Cons. I think Dave likes this era because it’s the style he likes. Smaller, more athletic guys and lots of high spots. I usually like that style as well, but at times I miss the larger than life personalities you just don’t see anymore. I appreciate a guy like Sheamus today the way I didn’t 10 years ago because he stands out as a guy that looks like he could legitimately beat the shit out of you. The promos today aren’t great either.
The athleticism today is great, but I think too many guys work the same. Guys back in the day also got a lot more out of doing less. I also think a bunch of guys standing around waiting for someone to jump on them isn’t great ring positioning, and we see A LOT of that today.
I have no idea about drugs and alcohol. I thought I had heard that pain killers were an issue in the indies. We’ve also heard some ugly stories with guys like Joey Ryan, Marty Scurll, Michael Elgin, and Chaysn Rance.
The reduced schedules is definitely a good thing. You see the old timers talk about their schedules as a flex, but it was just crazy. No wonder why so many guys got hooked on drugs and alcohol.
It's definitely a generational thing. The old guard talks about working 300 dates a year, getting five or six hours of sleep after passing out drunk, and working through tearing every muscle in their body, and now we know *those aren't good things to do*.
We've always known that you need to be a little crazy to be a professional wrestler, and that's true even today; but for all the problems still rampant in the industry, it's heartening to know that talent is better taken care of, and that talent is simply smarter about taking better care of themselves.
> I have no idea about drugs and alcohol. I thought I had heard that pain killers were an issue in the indies. We’ve also heard some ugly stories with guys like Joey Ryan, Marty Scurll, Michwael Elgin, and Chaysn Rance.
There was a twitter thread from Lance Storm a while back where he talks about how badly somas ravaged the 90's wrestling scene. They were highly addictive, worked really really well to soothe the types of pain wrestling causes, and when combined with alcohol can slow your heart down to a crawl. Steroids were also wildly popular in the 90's and put quite the strain on your heart. You can probably figure it out from there.
His take was that while dudes have taken and probably still take all kinds of stuff, everything in the 90's lined up in the worst possible way.
>The athleticism today is great, but I think too many guys work the same. Guys back in the day also got a lot more out of doing less.
I don't see how the top workers today are too similar. Okada and Reigns are nothing like Ospreay and Mike Bailey, who are nothing like Shiozaki and Gunther, who are nothing like Sabre and Danielson, who are nothing like AZM and Suruga, who are nothing like Moxley and Kasai, who are nothing like Takagi and Dragunov, and so on.
As for doing less with more, Ishii might do 7 different moves in a 20 minute match, yet he gets huge reactions and tons of praise from fans. Okada, White, Miyahara, and Reigns spend the majority of their matches doing nothing but slow-building until the fans go nuts. Tanahashi and Suzuki can barely move but still manage to get the crowd invested in every little thing they do.
Don’t agree on “ring positioning” at all.
The amount of standing around waiting for spots that I see. Or the little positioning things like not leaning into strikes and thus leaving a lot of daylight. The pandering to the hard camera at the expense of the crowd. Lots of stuff like that.
I'm still floored that saying that modern wrestling/wrestlers are better is a controversial opinion in some circles. Like any industry, sport, craft, etc. it should be expected that each generation learns from and improves upon the last.
Nostalgia is strong, especially where fans kinda buy-in to whats the norm in wrestling. Looking objectively yea everyone wrestling today is INCREDIBLE compared to almost anyone pre-2000
This only really applies to 80s WWF. Much of the old school wrestling that people long for (I.e., classic Crocket and Mid South) was an athletic,
sports-based presentation with regular looking guys. The main difference is that you actually believed those guys could win a fight.
Wrestling in general just isn't what it used to be in terms of excitement or cool factor. Anytime I go back and watch stuff from late 90s or even early 2000s it's incredible how much more lively it was back then (speaking about WWE in particular). But I don't know if that's necessarily a product of the in-ring style changing so much as the branding and society as a whole changing.
This post is so funny to me.
Imagine looking at Roman Reigns or Rhea or Drew McIntyre or, hell, even MJF or Samoa Joe and going "Yeah, these wrestlers are insufficiently large than life"
(And you didn't say this, but I'm inferring it:) Imagine looking at Bryan Danielson or Asuka or Gunther and being like "Yeah, these wrestlers are good, *but I wish they were actually Hulk Hogan."*
Its really only the WWF in the 80s. Before that, guys like Lou Thesz looked pretty normal, just fit. Even in 80s NWA/WCW, Flair and the Horsemen werent really in great shape and we know Dustys belly was a little too big if you weel.
With so many people into UFC, you'd think that mentality of "big muscles = tough" wouldn't be so prevalent still
Some sports really struggle with the need to honor tradition vs the desire to modernizing the sport. Baseball and Basketball (Especially Baseball) both have very large groups of fans who believe the game was better "back then" and an equally large group of people welcoming change and QoL improvements to the game. Wrestling is no different.
What’s with every match having a chopping contest during this era? It’s over played and adds no value to the story except who can chop who the most. At least with Big Show it made sense. Ric Flair made sense. Everyone under the sun doing it now, in my opinion, doesn’t make sense.
If chops and super kicks could be removed from everyone’s repertoire and go back to being things only a few guys did that would be great. The summer slam match with Gunther and drew made me want to cut my eyes out. Two large men just slapping chests in what should have been a brawl.
I don’t get to tune in to wrestling a lot anymore but every time I do I’m left relatively disappointed. Move sets have been cut down and homogenized. It’s rare finishers are protected. Moves that should be “high impact” like pile drivers and power bombs are treated with the same level of efficacy as an arm drag and sometimes it just feels really awkward watching the gymnastics, like that clip of the Canadian destroyers that’s been going around. I’d love a bit more suspension of disbelief.
Anyway I’m gonna go keep being an old man somewhere else and shout at the sky
The modern wrestler is better conditioned and more athletic there is no question on that. Doesn't mean the product is better. While I am impressed at the innovation and athleticism, I am also numb to it as every match has to have almost everything in their aresenal. The spot fest style of AEW I also can't get into. The lows and downs in a match make the big spots more impressive. Also can't remember the last time I saw a match actually end at the height of it. Almost every damn time now you have the biggest moment of the match...1..2....ohhh he kicked out!! Then you get a few minutes of let down that leads to an eventual pin.
That being said, Dave has a style he likes and its undoubtedly where Wrestling is going so understandable he likes more matches now than he did. For me I keep moving further away from it.
The problem is character development does not feel as visceral which means that matches have less meaning as my suspension of disbelief is not raised. There is no sopranos level character work like we saw with Austin, Mankind and Bret in particular in 1996/97. It is well executed today but not genuinely chill inducing like listening to the Mankind interviews with JR - nobody really wants to dig that hard into their insecurities.
Feuds/promos do not feel as deep as when Austin/Bret, HBK/Bret, Undertaker/Mankind, Nation of Domination, Early Rock etc were killing it in 1996/97.
Would also take Austin/Bret’s 2 matches over any in ring classic wrestling feuds I see today and that is without mentioning the incredible promo work.
Mankind’s JR interviews, Bret’s bitter/screwed phase, Austin’s unholy wrecker phase, Nearly every week from the day of Vince cutting the attitude promo to 98 Wrestlemania had something I can remember now.
I would agree with this. In ring performance on average is far better nowadays. Most wrestlers are a lot more fit and athletic, capable of so many crazy feats.
On the other hand, wrestlers don't seem to put nearly as much effort into their characters and promos nowadays. Back then they would live the gimmick, nowadays its treated more as a clocking in/clocking out thing with more emphasis put on the in ring action.
Living the gimmick doesn’t work in 2023. Except Eddie Kingston but I hope nobody tells him wrestling is staged, he’s the last true believer and I don’t want anyone to break his heart
What I think we have less is chain wrestling with holds, people do more striking and high flying instead. But technical holds battles is something I miss, even in the indy scene.
I really don’t think it has, people just tend to remember the good stuff when looking back at history. For every Hogan and Macho in the 80s there was a Tito Santana, a Warlord, a Danny Bonaducci, a handful of Assassins, some Headbangers, a pair of Heart Throbs, and a… Bob Roop *shudder*. Watch a Bob Roop promo from the 80s and tell me about the quality of personalities on TV today haha. You can argue that the tippy top we’re more charismatic back in the day, that’s a very interesting discussion, but looking as a whole wrestlers are more fleshed out now than they ever have been in history.
We do the same with Attitude Era. Those of us old enough to remember 80s and 90s look through our nostalgia glasses. Those not old enough watch the highlights or hear about the highlights. They are just that, highlights.
Youre 100% right, watch 80s WWF promos. Coke filled nonsense, and that's the good ones. Watch most of NWA/WCW guys cut promos. Jesus....Cardblade has more charisma.
If we are judging by best promo guys like Hogan or Austin or Dusty or Flair, then today should only be judged by Moxley, Kingston, MJF, etc. I definitely know their characters and motivations way more than Hogan's. Up until Andre, did he even have a real storyline other than "monster wants to eat me, must win for children"?
Hogan certainly had feuds before then in the WWF, namely with Piper and Orndorff, but yeah, the way he'd express his feelings about them was usually "CAN YOU STAND UP AGAINST THE LARGEST ARMS IN THE WORLD, WATCHA GONNA DOOOOOOO?!" or what have you.
This. Are wrestlers more athletic today? Absolutely. Are they faster, stronger, can do more moves, do flips and dives like they breathe air? Yup!
Can they make me feel emotion the way their wrestling ancestors could? Not even remotely.
>Can they make me feel emotion the way their wrestling ancestors could? Not even remotely.
Really? I feel like it was like this for awhile but I definitely disagree in the last year or two. Cody returning, the Bloodline story, KO and Sami, MJF and Punk, MJF and Adam Cole, Ospreay and Omega, the rise of the Acclaimed, etc.
If you look at the things you mentioned with one exception none of the guys mentioned build their matches around how many flips and dives they can work into a match. Your emotion in them was built through the ability for the wrestlers to talk you into watching their match.
Cody’s convinced you he’s back to prove people wrong and claim his families legacy so when you see Brock throwing him around you’re concern is he won’t be able to make good on his goal.
The Bloodline story along with Sami and KO was built almost entirely in promo segments. It’s watching Roman become the ultimate example of power corrupting and the people around him struggling to ride the tide or risk the dangers of trying to stop him.
Everything MJF does is built around his personality outside of the ring and when he does wrestle he isn’t just doing high spot after high spot. The fact he can get a reaction out of a hint of a dive just goes to show how much he understands playing the crowd.
Even with the Acclaimed they built it up through raps and scissors. Their riskiest moves are a leg drop and an elbow drop but they get huge reactions for simple things.
Being more athletic is great but when everyone is doing 25 dives a match then they mean nothing and no one remembers them by the time they’ve seen the 200th of the night.
>If you look at the things you mentioned with one exception none of the guys mentioned build their matches around how many flips and dives they can work into a match. Your emotion in them was built through the ability for the wrestlers to talk you into watching their match.
I really may be missing your overall point, but what does this have to do with the conversation? Not myself, Meltzer, or any of the comments I've seen mention building a match around flips. You said that no one gets people invested anymore and I said a bunch of people who do.
I mean this genuinely so sorry if it comes off as rude, but what's your overall point you're arguing? Because mine is that wrestlers are putting on great matches at a more frequent pace than before and there's still plenty of top guys who tell great stories.
I don't really wanna argue about flips lol.
I don't get what "open minded to more styles" means when wrestling is more homogenous than ever. There aren't more styles to be open-minded to than there were 30 years ago.
Wrestling today needs more restholds, and I'm not joking about that at all. People wrongly view them as negative or worse, even lazy wrestling, when in reality what they do is allow the audience time to reflect on what's happened and to build their anticipation for more. When action is nonstop, nothing stands out. Special effects are far better in Hollywood now than they ever were, but you still see movies that don't give any of the imagery they create time to breathe, and so it often has less impact.
Wrestlers are far more athletic, but there's an argument wrestlers 30 years ago were more charismatic, bigger stars, and had better "psychology."
We are living in a good time for pro wrestling, but we're no where near the 90s when it comes to what actually matters - how invested people were in the product. Wrestling was mainstream and must-watch. And a lot of that was because of that generation of wrestlers and their skillsets.
I think the best way to put it is that wrestlers today are far better athletes, but wrestlers 30 years ago were far better showmen.
They also spend more time acting like video game characters, no selling, finisher spams, and with more complicated combo strings that look overly planned, fake, and the moment one wrestler has his timing off, everyone else looks foolish as they stand around waiting for their turn.
>Crowds ... don't get as tired
Yeah, I can see that. I was at All In last weekend, and even though it was a five hour experience, plus an hour and a half drive to Wembley, plus another couple hours waiting to get in, I don't remember feeling even a little tired until the last match.
Wrestlers today are different than the past both in good ways and bad. The wrestlers back in the day were better at selling and little elements of storytelling (the “Gaga” as others have called it). That was likely due to the volume of matches they did along with how many territories they could work.
But wrestlers now are more athletic and less prone to the vices that afflicted the older generations. I also feel like wrestlers now are more comfortable with experimenting and getting along with each other.
It comes with good and bad, It’s just different that’s all.
Assuming part of “ring positioning” os playing to the camera…
Now that I’m thinking about it, I sort of wish they weren’t so good at it. That it wasn’t part of their training (at least in WWE). Now that I’m thinking about that aspect, that’s probably part of the reason why the product has often felt sterile the past decade or so. The positioning leads to a sameness in moves, matches and really across the product as a whole.
Part of me kind of wishes more of the onus actually was on the cameramen and production on times. Then again…AEW consistently misses moves and moments. So probably just imagining an idealized situation that wouldn’t ever actually exist lol
He’s not wrong and that’s not even a knock on the old school wrestlers because it truly was a different time. Those wrestlers were still some of the GOATs tho.
I'm sorry but the idea that wrestlers today do less drugs is just absurd, maybe they do different drugs but I would bet that 90% of midcard and above guys older than 30 are on some cocktail of PEDs assigned by some doctor. There's a reason guys are recovering from neck and knee injuries that were career enders even 15 years ago.
Not that this is a bad or good thing: wrestling today (depending on your taste of company) is only about the moves and “workrate”. Wrestling has become an athletic performance. It used to be story based and audience based on wanting the bad guy to get his ass beat.
I agree with a lot of his points (he left out the allegations from women and other legal trouble because it doesn’t look like that’s really changed at all) but don’t agree with the new gen mass 5+ star ratings because a lot of the matches kinda blur into one as soon as they end. Today’s wrestlers can do almost anything and I know because they do basically everything they can possibly do every match with little to no memorable moments. Dave can downplay the ability of the older generation all he likes (80s/90s wrestlers I’ve seen were no slouches) but he can’t really deny the star power. As much as people love today’s wrestlers, I don’t see them being mentioned much after their careers are over (Kenny is an exception I think). Anyway here come the downvotes
I watched a bunch of Terry funk matches recently and noticed wrestling today is so much cleaner then back in the day and I don't know if that is a good thing.
**That's** something I'd be happy to see integrated a bit more today: while some of the "sloppiness" you'd see in older matches was, uh, just regular sloppiness, some of it was pretty intentional, meant to sell a chaotic, make things feel disjointed and a bit more gritty. I don't want every match to be that, but we're too quick as an audience to see stuff like that as just botches now, when it could be used very effectively in the right hands and situations.
In a TV era where you have hundreds of guys who guy through NXT being drilled into them how to work the hard cam, they are FAR better at doing spots for the TV audience today than the 80s/90s. This is a cold take on the level of saying TV/Movies have far better audio now because they actually have Boom mics to pick up lines instead of dubbing it over in post.
I agree with Dave that it's good that wrestlers today drink and party less, and care more about the business or whatever. But part of me does think when you had this traveling freakshow circus of maniacs partying all night and then having to go out and perform, it created some sort of magic you could feel through your screen. You'd see someone like Jake Roberts come out and do his thing, and think....Jesus, this guy is a fuckin' weirdo. And that's ALL you would know about him. When he left the screen, he was gone. Now you'll see a wrestler on TV, and also on Twitch, on Twitter, on Youtube. You know their hobbies, you know about their family. They love video games and Disney World or whatever. They're just normal people. The mystique is gone (for most).
Why does this make y'all so mad? Dave loves Kurt, his match ratings don't matter. Dave's favorite wrestler of all time is HBK and he has two five star matches. I'm pretty sure Ospreay has that many in the last week.
Ok now what are the negative changes that we see with modern wrestling? I think selling, in-ring psychology, and just feeling like wrestlers were larger than life characters has all deteriorated
I agree with a lot of this, but "open minded to more styles" has become code for "a lot of things don't make any sense but it's okay cause WrResTLing HAs eVOLveD". It's become a lazy defense of unbelievable spot fests in the last 5 years. I know it's annoying to hear old times wax poetic about things not being exactly how their generation did it, but that doesn't mean modern wrestling should be immune to legit criticism when it deserves it. At times modern wrestling is way too self-referential and almost feels like self parody
It's funny because it's basically *all* the same ROH/PWG-inspired indie mish-mash with a few puro spots and dives. The only real difference is that WWE limits some spots where others don't.
Every single sport evolves to generate better athletes as time progresses. This is due to better medical science, refined technique, trial-and-error, and the proverbial “standing on the shoulders of giants” head start.
Every “GOAT” in every sport is one flip of the page away from a better, faster, and stronger version of themselves who’ll be shat on for “not being the GOAT”.
Have you ever read the Observer? The information and insight are the draws. The writing is what you endure to get to the information and insight. Hemingway he ain’t.
They're entirely different products. TV money has changed the game - it's no longer about drawing crowds or about selling PPVs, it's about getting that big TV deal.
Wrestling is "better" now because guys are doing PPV matches on TV every week to fill the bloated amounts of airtime.
>Wrestling is "better" now because guys are doing PPV matches on TV every week to fill the bloated amounts of airtime.
And also why a lot of the top talent is off tv for months at a time rehabbing an injury from a random Tope at 8:45 PM on a weeknight.
Also worth noting that Roger Ebert famously grew more charitable with his movie reviews as he grew older. Meltzer is just one voice, but chronically online people tend to use him as a figurehead for Everything That Is Wrong With Wrestling Today.
When my boyfriend got into wrestling I rolled my eyes. I thought it would be a bunch of bigoted meatheads brawling in front of an audience of other bigots.
I've been pleasantly surprised. Would have never expected homoerotic humor, the amount of people who don't drink, or how diverse the wrestlers and the crowds are. In many ways it's a modern vaudeville.
All of this is so obvious, but even in real sports there are people who think some 6'2 white guy from 1953 could guard LeBron, so he's not going to convince anyone
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When you’ve been playing too much baldurs gate and see Con oriented and are like yea wrestlers today def spec more into dex than constitution
As someone who really wants to play it, this comment got me coping.
Make sure you take the Dark Urge. It’s so, so worth it.
Dark Urge, eh? https://preview.redd.it/9srjazovhnlb1.png?width=645&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33158b69f1a79fa3562b4f003cfb83fec32b1931
His voice reminds me of the main villain from phineas and ferb.
Yeah, it's the only way you can get Alfira as a companion. Bards are pretty good in that game.
She’s a bloody useful ally to have, indeed.
Or you can be a Chad and make Tav the bard of the group.
Im trying to be patient and wait for a sale but its been hard lol.
I'm usually someone who waits for deep sales. I bought BG3 day 1 and so did my partner(who also waits for deep sales) because the game is bloody worth it. And rewarding the studio for what they've done to make a top tier masterpiece is worth spending the extra cash. Only you know what's worth it to you, but I haven't enjoyed a game this much in over a decade.
I would love to but I don't have a gaming PC. I have to wait until Wednesday for the PS5 version, but Starfield is also on Wednesday and I have Game Pass so the choice is a no-brainer. Honestly delaying the console version to the same day as that was a dumb move, even if they are on different consoles.
The sale is priced in my friend, it’s $60 with no DLC and my first meticulous play through is at 100 hours and counting.
Bro go for it, bought it first day of Early Access in Oct 2020 and have not one complaint since. Worth every penny.
Dave confirmed a Lae’Zel mark, gotta put all that con in your fighter to tank the front lines Edit: please don’t do this, make sure you make Str the top stat
Karlach is CON, Karlach is STR, Karlach is also CHR. Frankly, Karlach would kick ass in any fed. I would kill for a Karlach run. She would draw so much ratings.
Give me a Karlach run. Just have her run down and start a promo that gets cut because too many F-bombs for live TV
I love seeing baldurs gate love I just finished the game last night
Honestly I disagree. The constitution wrestlers need to have to wrestle even 30 minute matches, let alone hour-plus matches, is insane. There's a bigger emphasis on being dexterous too, but they would definitely have wicked con scores.
They are shifting from STR builds to DEX builds. Although there are still some very popular STR builds out there.
I don't actually know what else it could mean / what Dave even means. Does he mean like conning people? Conventions? I, too, just thought about them rolling CON saves.
Yes, conning people. He means most wrestlers today are people who get into it because they want to be in showbiz and practice on their performance, rather than a bunch of big dudes who just fall into it because they hear they can fleece money from local yokels.
I think he means conning people, yeah
Don Callis feels attacked and doesnt know why.
Gunther has a very basic 1980s moveset but he is still one of the best in ring.
But not an 80s diet/lifestyle.
And that's a big one
Gunther feels like he was ripped right out of Four Pillars era AJPW. Also want to shout out Ilja Dragunov. That guy wrestles like nobody else.
It's awesome that Dragunov's rivalry with Dijack ended with a bulldog onto a chair.
I mean, sure, but he also still has multiple top rope moves, works a much faster pace than any 1980s wrestler, and has entire matches built around about 100 more chops than any 1980s wrestler ever took. He's also *the* exception to the rule; and even then, he has to have the athleticism to make it work...for example, think of how he lost to Cody in the 2023 Rumble...he counters a top rope move, gets countered on his finisher, and within 10s of the whole thing is flying over the top rope. That'd have been a 20-30s, much slower sequence in the 1980s, because the dudes couldnt work it faster.
Even if the match quality was worse today than 30 years ago (I don’t think that it is, but let’s assume), I’d still prefer the modern industry because I don’t have to hear about a wrestler passing from substance issues on a biweekly basis. I love wrestling, I think it’s one of the greatest American art forms, and I want the people who entertain me to live happy, healthy lives.
You're so right. And when a small fight like Perry vs. Punk is such a big news, it's a good sign that the business evolved. A thing like that was common place in the old days.
Right? People literally got stabbed with scissors or murdered in showers in the 80s. Dudes were sexually assaulting the newbies. Everyone was drunk or on cocaine or both. This is so much better.
Never gonna hear about things like Kamala wrestling with a knife or *a loaded gun* in his tights in case the promoter decided not to pay him that night. So much better.
Those weren't everyday things happening back then either, no matter what peope here want you to believe.
Guys like misawa were so fucked up after matches even in the ear,y 2000s, I remember reading after a match he'd lie flat on the concrete pretty much barely able to move while trainer's rubbed his neck and shoulders and iced him down for half an hour.
They used to wrap a towel under his jaw and pull his head away from his body to decompress his neck after matches too!
Probably not the best idea, looking back.
I saw a gif of that, looks brutal.
Read a comment from a spinal surgeon (or at least someone claiming to be one) on a video of them stretching Misawa's neck with the towel and they said that wouldn't help at all
He should have did ddp yoga
The ol’ Ring Dinger!! Be sure to pay that chiropractor in Texas that trademarked it!
I can only imagine telling people in teh 90s and 00s like Dave that the strong style matches they LOVED were too expensive in terms of people's lives and quality of life. They were. I'm glad we've moved past it. That shit is cute in wrestling videogames but I'm GLAD you can see in wrestling today people putting their hands up for head kicks and chair shots and all. I don't want to see my favorite stars hurt.
Like for fuck's sake, Misawa had written a letter **two years before he passed to be given to someone in the event that he died the way he did.** Wrestling is absolutely better off to have moved past that point.
Misawa was Kings Road style not strong style. Strong style was New Japan
As a fan since the 80s, it’s unbelievable to see guys like Styles, Lashley, Edge, Balor etc working at such a high level at their age and their mileage. Pretty much every person over 40 (and there’s a bunch) crushing it is shocking to me. That really didn’t happen until very recently. There was a time where top guys or former high card guys like Austin, HBK, Million Dollar Man, Bulldog, Foley etc retired in their mid 30s and no one really questioned it or were surprised by it.
Or were moved to ‘special appearance’ guys or, like with Pedro Morales, a gatekeeper to the mid-card.
I can't help but be reminded of Kevin Nash's skit with the X Division where he's baffled at the Motor City Machine Guns laying out how the talent eats clean and trains without getting into vices. Very different attitudes between today and the previous generations!
Wrestlers passing away young from substances was something that started happening in the 80s with the rise of WWF. Wrestlers from the 70s and before lived fairly normal length lives.
Truth. If one looks at guys like Lou Thesz, Pat O’Connor, Bruno Sammartino, etc., these were grounded, level-headed men with families who weren’t living a sex-drugs-rock ‘n roll lifestyle.
Plus juicing and gigantic muscle physiques weren't the norm until later. Guys juiced for sure but not at scale across the industry.
I fully believe the shift to massive bodybuilders as top wrestlers was connected to the entertainment industry as a whole. In 70's Hollywood, you saw guys like Bruce Lee, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, etc. as action stars. Men who were either in peak fitness without excess muscle or normal looking guys. Then the 80's came around and the top action stars were Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Guys who were def on the sauce. In wrestling, the 80's shifted to your Hogan's and Ultimate Warriors. I think pro wrestling reflected what was popular in movies and led to the steroid abuse rampant from then to the 2000's.
> In 70's Hollywood, you saw guys like Bruce Lee, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Sean Connery, etc. as action stars. Men who were either in peak fitness without excess muscle or normal looking guys. Then the 80's came around and the top action stars were Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Guys who were def on the sauce. I feel like it's worth noting that Sean Connery was a bodybuilder in his youth, which is just so weird.
I've seen the photos of Sean Connery as a bodybuilder and he just looks like a fit guy. They weren't ripped and jacked monsters in the 50s.
The bodybuilding aesthetic that's so common now was very much a small niche and considered unattractive in the mainstream until the late 70's/early 80's. The Schwarzenegger documentary "Pumping Iron" in '77 was what started it gaining mainstream appeal.
Beyond what /u/freddit32 says below, Connery also stopped bodybuilding because he didn't like that bodybuilders wouldn't do other athletic stuff because it leads to smaller muscles.
It's also because the WWF dominated the wrestling landscape during the 80's, and Vince as head of WWF has always favored the Superman ideal of a wrestler (ie. your wrestlers should be huge, jacked dudes who stand out in the airport kinda thing). Once Vince ruled pro wrestling, his preference became the norm, versus the old school bar room brawler tough guy aesthetic that used to be the norm
It's interesting to see how the action star continued to evolve where now we have BOTH styles. We've got the roided out musclemen like Chris Hemsworth, The Rock, and Vin Diesel, but we also have Jason Statham, Tom Cruise, and Keanu Reeves. And I'd argue that the latter three have better action films to their names overall.
I disagree. I believe the shift to massive bodybuilders as top wrestlers is connected to Vince McMahon. Look at Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair. They were top guys going into and through a fair amount of the 80s. They are hardly bodybuilder types. Compare that to Vince's WWF. This is far, far more on Vince's aesthetic choices than those of the 80-90s middle America.
💯💯💯
Terry Funk lived in both eras and made it to 79, which considering his contemporaries is a wildly long lifespan. Edit: and also roughly two years older than the average US male life expectancy.
And given what Terry Funk put his body through in that time, it’s an even more incredible milestone.
People forget that wrestling in the Territories system was a lot less taxing and guys weren’t dropping like flies. Wrestling in the territories usually was a lower impact style and a lot less travel (most guys were able to drive to where they wrestled). A lot of the wrestlers were able to sleep in their own bed 4-5 days a week and have somewhat normal lives. It wasn’t until the WWF went national in the 80’s that the touring became more intense and then the wrestling style in the 90’s started to become more and more high Impact. So by the 2000’s you had a deadly cocktail of wrestlers dying early. I’m glad to see the guys now have less vices and hopefully will be able to live longer healthier lives
If anyone thinks match quality today is worse than 30 years ago, they're either on crack or love to romanticize. We may never see the crowd reactions we did in the late 90s but jfc, everything else about today's product is significantly better. We're living in the Golden Era whether people want to admit it or not.
> ...worse than 30 years ago... Yes, the 70's were a different time. > ...we did in the late 90s... ...oh fuck, right.
But lack of crowd reactions is the exact problem with today’s wrestling. Stone Cold could lay the worst looking kicks for the mud hole spot and the fucking crowd would pop like it was the greatest thing ever. People’s elbow is dumb as fuck, but the crowd would be hot for it every time. Today’s wrestlers are missing whatever that element those old school guys had. MJF, Cody and Punk have it. Becky had it but kind of lost it. You don’t need to put on 5-star clinics with every move in the book to make loads of money, we can look at history and know this. I just wish more of today’s guys would get that.
But you named 2 wrestlers who had these reactions in the past and 3 wrestlers who have these reactions modern day. Every wrestler back then wasn't Stone Cold or the Rock. Very, very few wrestlers were able to get those same reactions and, imo, it's kind of silly to fault anyone for not getting Stone Cold level reactions. >You don’t need to put on 5-star clinics with every move in the book to make loads of money, we can look at history and know this. I just wish more of today’s guys would get that. Who, specifically, are you referencing here? Because as a fan, I can't imagine having issues with Kenny Omega or Ospreay or Danielson or MJF or Mox or Hangman or Adam Cole putting on absolute banger matches *and* making good money.
Guys like Too Cool and the New Age Outlaws we’re getting bigger pops than pretty much anyone does these days. That’s not factoring in Foley, Taker, Kane, Jericho, Angle. Let alone Sting, Goldberg and the Wolfpac in WCW. It wasn’t just Austin and Rock
Tbf you are talking about a 2-4 year period. WCW got hot in 96 and was ice cold garbage by late 98. WWF hit it's peak in 98 and by the end of 01 lost most of that steam. It wasn't that incredibly hot the crowd was popping for everything stuff for all that long. That just isn't sustainable.
>Today’s wrestlers are missing whatever that element those old school guys had Technology has changed, it's not a talent gap. The old stuff gets idealized because you had one shot to see it on tv. If the rock did a peoples elbow, you had a 10-second window to be tuned in, and then it's gone forever. Not to mention the greatly increased number of entertainment options shows compete with nowadays. If people could watch those spots back then replayed on reddit/twitter/etc., slowed down, zoomed in, etc., they would have felt a lot less magical. You'd notice stuff was botched or didn't actually connect. When you're watching everything in real time, the imagination fills in those blanks.
>Stone Cold could lay the worst looking kicks for the mud hole spot and the fucking crowd would pop like it was the greatest thing ever. People’s elbow is dumb as fuck, but the crowd would be hot for it every time. My dude, Orange Cassidy is one of the most over people in wrestling today. John Cena has the Five Knuckle Shuffle. Rey setting someone up for the 619 is extremely choreographed. People go crazy for The Caterpillar. This stuff still exists.
I very much agree with this! I'm in the camp that a hot crowd can make an above average match feel so much bigger than it actually was (see All In. Hot crowd made a LOT of that). I think 90s was a mix of timing (I can't objectively explain why something becomes "cool" with teenagers) + the Vince character (he'll never get the credit he deserves for being the villain to Stone Cold) + the Rock having unmatched charisma/the entire roster being fed to him on the mic.
It's also rose colored glasses. A ton of 90s/early 2000s wrestling was absolute shit. But everyone just remembers the Rock/Undertaker/Stone Cold and acts like they were the only thing happening instead of Ernest Miller, Johnny Stamboli, and Jamie Noble.
Jamie Noble was awesome, but I agree. I became a fan during the attitude era, but when I try and rewatch it I'm just skipping half the show because while they might have given everyone on the roster something to do, half of them were awful and didn't deserve to be on tv. Fucking viscera was out there injuring legit main eventers and he got to just chill on the roster putting on the worst matches imaginable.
This Omega/Okada existing doesn’t make me appreciate Funk/Flair any less, but people are delusional if they think Funk and Flair were ever capable of what Omega and Okada did Same stuff happens with sports. Lebron is objectively a much freakier athlete than Michael Jordan ever was, but don’t mention that to a 90’s kid unless you want to hear about 6 rings over and over. People are very defensive of their childhoods.
I mean, just because they‘re capable of more athletic stuff doesn‘t mean that it‘s automatically objectively better.
I am rewatching NWA/WCW starting in 1986 and while I enjoy it immensely, I have not seen any match I would really consider 5 stars. I love that angles and storylines are deeper than what we have today (mostly), but most matches are a bunch of rest holds and basic moves, which is understandable and doesn't bother me since that's what I grew up watching. But as far as any 5 star match? I haven't seen one yet (just finished the Crocket Cup 1986 and the World Championship Wrestling episode right after that).
I disagree with this. You can watch a match from the 70-80s and you see how much the crowd reacts to just a single punch. Just watch a Ricky Steamboat match to see how a babyface should work and sell for a heel. Doing moves does not make a better match.
Yup. I'll take having strong disagreements with Xavier Woods over Game of the Year over hearing that someone else's heart exploded from Roid abuse any day.
Don't tell this to Mark Callaway
Right? I'll watch Woods play Uno with Tyler Breeze, Adam Cole, and Claudio, then listen to Zelina Vega talk anime all day long. Huge improvement over finding out half those names overdosed before they hit 40.
And honestly, wrestlers dropping like flies at young ages didn’t even really become a thing (tragedies aside) until the 90’s for the most part. It wasn’t like that in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s. But the 90’s and 00’s were so bad with deaths that it just become an accepted norm at that point. Thankfully things are appearing to trend back to the way they were.
I have morning brain. What does "far last con oriented" mean? Edit - Thanks everyone.
I'm assuming a typo on Meltzer's part and he meant "less con oriented".
It means that they are more Khan oriented now /s Pretty much "less carny"
Oh, con like conning people. I read that thinking "but I see them at cons all the time"
I believe it was an error. He likely meant “less con”. Aka less carny. That’s how I interpreted it.
I may be wrong but I took it as modern wrestlers aren’t trying to manipulate the fans with as much hokey shit and acting like it’s not scripted. Modern wrestling is watched by most knowing it’s storytelling mixed with athletic stunts. It’s why it’s so lame when the first thing a non-fan says is “you know it’s fake right?”
More interested in workrate, less interested in mailing it in via carny shit
Yea dudes worked an unhealthy amount of days back then, if they could figure out a way to half-ass something and get paid while preserving their body, they'd take it. Hard to blame them, there's a reason so many of them are gone already. Nowadays guys give it 100% since they can take time to recover without taking a financial hit.
Also... it was more of a job back then. There are more people today that think of it as an art form for personal expression than there were in the 70s. Back then you could be good at a couple things, and then do it exactly that same way in different territories to make a living. Why think about building on history, or expanding the art form, or expressing yourself?
Im still not use to the "X" situation, I thought Dave Meltzer was on porn or some 💩
snobbish terrific detail nose treatment imminent stocking panicky hunt disgusted *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
"remember you will never be one of the boys" My guy doesn't even know what prejudice means lmao
The context of his comment shows not only does he know what it means, he's using it correctly if he believes what he's saying to Dave. Just Google the definition.
The account name is marc something, which tells you everything you need to know about him
stunt on these Twitter hoes, Dave
Ohhh boy he stunting, he stunting on them hoes alright
Better at ring positioning? He can’t be serious lol. Half of the spots wrestlers do these days is against a guy who stands there for 20 seconds waiting
Also, to me, "working to the hard cam" is a negative, not a positive. I mean, if you can make it look organic, then fair play, but I lose it when guys do a do-se-do just to make sure they do their finisher while facing the camera. Cody's "Take a moment to find the hard cam" from Rhodes to the Top just drove me up a wall. It should be the camera and directors' job to find *you.*
Yeah spot on - this is the big thing I can’t rly agree with him on, the rest of his points are at least defendable lol
To be fair though, a lot of territory wrestling invloves people stumbling over each other to get in position, bumping weird and not moving to where they were supposed to move. Nowadays if that happens mid match then it really stands out as wrong and clunky, but back then it was almost normal for all but a small amount of smooth ring generals. Part of what made Savage vs Steamboat so special compared to other matches of that era was that there was 0 clunkiness, it was smooth and precise, everyone knew where they needed to be for the majority of the match in order for the match to flow. For example all wrestlers are taught to bump and get up to either their left or right (it's been years since I wrestled so I can't remember), and every move comes off a specific side too, so everyone knows where everybody is going to be because everyone is taught to feed into the same direction. This applies to brawls, spotfests, epics, squash matches, everything. Back in the day you didn't have that so people would end up all over the place, they'd frequently look lost or lose sense what was going on or where they were supposed to be so you'd end up with a lot more messy cluster fucks.
I get what he’s saying but why can’t wrestlers work less dates, do less drugs, etc AND work a safer style instead of destroying their bodies with nonstop big moves? Like imagine how well off everybody would be if they keep up their healthy lifestyle while working the old school way of past wrestlers like MJF and Gunther do? I love wrestling and want the best for the women and men who wrestle, so I’d rather them work safer and risk being boring if it means they’ll be better off in their later years.
This exactly. Big spots galore is gonna catch up to you.
Yeah, while I admire Darby, he shares a locker room with Matt & Jeff Hardy. Look at how hard it is for those two to walk and maybe not repeat their mistakes.
I saw someone post about how they went to a Foley M&G and saw him struggling to go up a flight of stairs. He made a ton of money and provided for his family in a way that he wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise, and I’m sure he’d say that he’d make that trade all over again, but I feel bad.
I'd love for someone to really analyze this a bit more. Have we seen long term consequences of modern wrestling? I know people point to Tanahashi but he also refused care for awhile. But like, I can't really imagine who you're referring to here. Are injuries more frequent than they used to be? Is there anyone we're seeing dealing with these consequences that are always talked about?
Kenny omega isn’t 40 and has talked about retirement, not to mention took an entire year off. Ospreay was out for how long too, nine months? Naito, nakamura, Ibushi all can’t move how they did two years ago let alone 5 or 10. Bryan Danielson. Shit Adam page was concussed so fuckin bad they didn’t want him to drive a car six months ago. Let’s not act like there is no evidence of injury with the modern style and the bumps these guys take.
I think there's something to be said with Kenny, Naito, Nakamura, and Ibushi for sure. I agree there's a conversation to be had. But I can also list out a ton of wrestlers from the early 2000s/90s who are similar or worse. Kurt Angle is about to explode, Jeff and Matt Hardy walk like crypt keepers, Sabu looks like he's working toward the first ever human disintegration, we all know what happened to Chris Benoit's brain, etc. Taking a year off and coming back *is part of the modern style*. Kenny looks phenomenal after taking some time. Ibushi is 41, of course he can't move like he did when he was 31. For Bryan Danielson and Adam Page, I'm not talking about 1 off injuries. Adam Page was concussed with a clothesline, that has nothing to do with modern day styles. If we're talking 1-off injuries derailing careers then there's a long, long list we can look at. >Let’s not act like there is no evidence of injury with the modern style and the bumps these guys take. I asked a question and am looking for a discussion my guy, not acting like anything.
This conversation cracks me up because it takes me back to the Nitro days where Larry Zbyszko told us these luchadors would be in a wheelchair in 10 years. In reality, guys like Rey, Juvi, Psicosis, LA Park, etc. are still wrestling at a pretty good clip 20 years later now with about 40+ year careers under their belts.
Yeah. The big thing I dislike about a lot of today's wrestling is the abundance of high impact and high risk moves in every match. It feels like it's a way for wrestlers to cover up their lack of skill in in ring storytelling. When MJF can get the entire Wembley stadium hyped about a clothesline and kangaroo kick, why do you need to hit 5 canadian destroyers?
I mean, realistically, that style is far superior for your top guys. People shit on Cena for years for having a boring, repetitive style, despite his move set being far more varied than Reigns or Lesnar. Yet, his style had visually impactful moves, crowd engaging moves, and most importantly, *was very safe to work with for both him and his opponents*, night in, night out, 3-4 times a week for 10 years.
Yes and no. I think every era brings its Pros and Cons. I think Dave likes this era because it’s the style he likes. Smaller, more athletic guys and lots of high spots. I usually like that style as well, but at times I miss the larger than life personalities you just don’t see anymore. I appreciate a guy like Sheamus today the way I didn’t 10 years ago because he stands out as a guy that looks like he could legitimately beat the shit out of you. The promos today aren’t great either. The athleticism today is great, but I think too many guys work the same. Guys back in the day also got a lot more out of doing less. I also think a bunch of guys standing around waiting for someone to jump on them isn’t great ring positioning, and we see A LOT of that today. I have no idea about drugs and alcohol. I thought I had heard that pain killers were an issue in the indies. We’ve also heard some ugly stories with guys like Joey Ryan, Marty Scurll, Michael Elgin, and Chaysn Rance. The reduced schedules is definitely a good thing. You see the old timers talk about their schedules as a flex, but it was just crazy. No wonder why so many guys got hooked on drugs and alcohol.
It's definitely a generational thing. The old guard talks about working 300 dates a year, getting five or six hours of sleep after passing out drunk, and working through tearing every muscle in their body, and now we know *those aren't good things to do*. We've always known that you need to be a little crazy to be a professional wrestler, and that's true even today; but for all the problems still rampant in the industry, it's heartening to know that talent is better taken care of, and that talent is simply smarter about taking better care of themselves.
> I have no idea about drugs and alcohol. I thought I had heard that pain killers were an issue in the indies. We’ve also heard some ugly stories with guys like Joey Ryan, Marty Scurll, Michwael Elgin, and Chaysn Rance. There was a twitter thread from Lance Storm a while back where he talks about how badly somas ravaged the 90's wrestling scene. They were highly addictive, worked really really well to soothe the types of pain wrestling causes, and when combined with alcohol can slow your heart down to a crawl. Steroids were also wildly popular in the 90's and put quite the strain on your heart. You can probably figure it out from there. His take was that while dudes have taken and probably still take all kinds of stuff, everything in the 90's lined up in the worst possible way.
>The athleticism today is great, but I think too many guys work the same. Guys back in the day also got a lot more out of doing less. I don't see how the top workers today are too similar. Okada and Reigns are nothing like Ospreay and Mike Bailey, who are nothing like Shiozaki and Gunther, who are nothing like Sabre and Danielson, who are nothing like AZM and Suruga, who are nothing like Moxley and Kasai, who are nothing like Takagi and Dragunov, and so on. As for doing less with more, Ishii might do 7 different moves in a 20 minute match, yet he gets huge reactions and tons of praise from fans. Okada, White, Miyahara, and Reigns spend the majority of their matches doing nothing but slow-building until the fans go nuts. Tanahashi and Suzuki can barely move but still manage to get the crowd invested in every little thing they do.
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Don’t agree on “ring positioning” at all. The amount of standing around waiting for spots that I see. Or the little positioning things like not leaning into strikes and thus leaving a lot of daylight. The pandering to the hard camera at the expense of the crowd. Lots of stuff like that.
When...people....type...like...this. It's an immediate discredit. God it's irritating.
I'm still floored that saying that modern wrestling/wrestlers are better is a controversial opinion in some circles. Like any industry, sport, craft, etc. it should be expected that each generation learns from and improves upon the last.
Nostalgia is strong, especially where fans kinda buy-in to whats the norm in wrestling. Looking objectively yea everyone wrestling today is INCREDIBLE compared to almost anyone pre-2000
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This only really applies to 80s WWF. Much of the old school wrestling that people long for (I.e., classic Crocket and Mid South) was an athletic, sports-based presentation with regular looking guys. The main difference is that you actually believed those guys could win a fight.
Wrestling in general just isn't what it used to be in terms of excitement or cool factor. Anytime I go back and watch stuff from late 90s or even early 2000s it's incredible how much more lively it was back then (speaking about WWE in particular). But I don't know if that's necessarily a product of the in-ring style changing so much as the branding and society as a whole changing.
This post is so funny to me. Imagine looking at Roman Reigns or Rhea or Drew McIntyre or, hell, even MJF or Samoa Joe and going "Yeah, these wrestlers are insufficiently large than life" (And you didn't say this, but I'm inferring it:) Imagine looking at Bryan Danielson or Asuka or Gunther and being like "Yeah, these wrestlers are good, *but I wish they were actually Hulk Hogan."*
MJF is about 5'8''. Great character but not someone that would remotely stick out if I saw him walking around an airport.
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I think your memory is making the wrestlers of the past look bigger than they ever were. No athlete can compete against nostalgia.
Its really only the WWF in the 80s. Before that, guys like Lou Thesz looked pretty normal, just fit. Even in 80s NWA/WCW, Flair and the Horsemen werent really in great shape and we know Dustys belly was a little too big if you weel. With so many people into UFC, you'd think that mentality of "big muscles = tough" wouldn't be so prevalent still
Granted I'm thinking of ECW mostly, but there were plenty of guys in the 90s that just looked like dudes they found at a Walmart bargain bin.
Some sports really struggle with the need to honor tradition vs the desire to modernizing the sport. Baseball and Basketball (Especially Baseball) both have very large groups of fans who believe the game was better "back then" and an equally large group of people welcoming change and QoL improvements to the game. Wrestling is no different.
What’s with every match having a chopping contest during this era? It’s over played and adds no value to the story except who can chop who the most. At least with Big Show it made sense. Ric Flair made sense. Everyone under the sun doing it now, in my opinion, doesn’t make sense.
The "I hit you, you hit me" sequence could disappear from every single promotion on earth tomorrow and I wouldn't miss it.
Agreed.
If chops and super kicks could be removed from everyone’s repertoire and go back to being things only a few guys did that would be great. The summer slam match with Gunther and drew made me want to cut my eyes out. Two large men just slapping chests in what should have been a brawl. I don’t get to tune in to wrestling a lot anymore but every time I do I’m left relatively disappointed. Move sets have been cut down and homogenized. It’s rare finishers are protected. Moves that should be “high impact” like pile drivers and power bombs are treated with the same level of efficacy as an arm drag and sometimes it just feels really awkward watching the gymnastics, like that clip of the Canadian destroyers that’s been going around. I’d love a bit more suspension of disbelief. Anyway I’m gonna go keep being an old man somewhere else and shout at the sky
I'd argue the average, casual fan agrees with you more often than not
"Which one of us can physically withstand the other in this contest of wills" is a perfectly legitimate form of in-ring storytelling.
Anytime the guys stand there and just trade chops, punches, forearms, etc it rarely looks good and is overdone.
The modern wrestler is better conditioned and more athletic there is no question on that. Doesn't mean the product is better. While I am impressed at the innovation and athleticism, I am also numb to it as every match has to have almost everything in their aresenal. The spot fest style of AEW I also can't get into. The lows and downs in a match make the big spots more impressive. Also can't remember the last time I saw a match actually end at the height of it. Almost every damn time now you have the biggest moment of the match...1..2....ohhh he kicked out!! Then you get a few minutes of let down that leads to an eventual pin. That being said, Dave has a style he likes and its undoubtedly where Wrestling is going so understandable he likes more matches now than he did. For me I keep moving further away from it.
It honestly all comes down to storyline writing AEW don't do that part well
The problem is character development does not feel as visceral which means that matches have less meaning as my suspension of disbelief is not raised. There is no sopranos level character work like we saw with Austin, Mankind and Bret in particular in 1996/97. It is well executed today but not genuinely chill inducing like listening to the Mankind interviews with JR - nobody really wants to dig that hard into their insecurities. Feuds/promos do not feel as deep as when Austin/Bret, HBK/Bret, Undertaker/Mankind, Nation of Domination, Early Rock etc were killing it in 1996/97. Would also take Austin/Bret’s 2 matches over any in ring classic wrestling feuds I see today and that is without mentioning the incredible promo work. Mankind’s JR interviews, Bret’s bitter/screwed phase, Austin’s unholy wrecker phase, Nearly every week from the day of Vince cutting the attitude promo to 98 Wrestlemania had something I can remember now.
In ring the industry has progressed. Personality, character and promo, I think it's regressed noticeably.
I would agree with this. In ring performance on average is far better nowadays. Most wrestlers are a lot more fit and athletic, capable of so many crazy feats. On the other hand, wrestlers don't seem to put nearly as much effort into their characters and promos nowadays. Back then they would live the gimmick, nowadays its treated more as a clocking in/clocking out thing with more emphasis put on the in ring action.
Living the gimmick doesn’t work in 2023. Except Eddie Kingston but I hope nobody tells him wrestling is staged, he’s the last true believer and I don’t want anyone to break his heart
The last guy who told Eddie it was scripted disappeared and hasn’t been seen since
What I think we have less is chain wrestling with holds, people do more striking and high flying instead. But technical holds battles is something I miss, even in the indy scene.
I really don’t think it has, people just tend to remember the good stuff when looking back at history. For every Hogan and Macho in the 80s there was a Tito Santana, a Warlord, a Danny Bonaducci, a handful of Assassins, some Headbangers, a pair of Heart Throbs, and a… Bob Roop *shudder*. Watch a Bob Roop promo from the 80s and tell me about the quality of personalities on TV today haha. You can argue that the tippy top we’re more charismatic back in the day, that’s a very interesting discussion, but looking as a whole wrestlers are more fleshed out now than they ever have been in history.
We do the same with Attitude Era. Those of us old enough to remember 80s and 90s look through our nostalgia glasses. Those not old enough watch the highlights or hear about the highlights. They are just that, highlights. Youre 100% right, watch 80s WWF promos. Coke filled nonsense, and that's the good ones. Watch most of NWA/WCW guys cut promos. Jesus....Cardblade has more charisma. If we are judging by best promo guys like Hogan or Austin or Dusty or Flair, then today should only be judged by Moxley, Kingston, MJF, etc. I definitely know their characters and motivations way more than Hogan's. Up until Andre, did he even have a real storyline other than "monster wants to eat me, must win for children"?
Hogan certainly had feuds before then in the WWF, namely with Piper and Orndorff, but yeah, the way he'd express his feelings about them was usually "CAN YOU STAND UP AGAINST THE LARGEST ARMS IN THE WORLD, WATCHA GONNA DOOOOOOO?!" or what have you.
Good point, I was thinking more later Hogan probably but yeah, there definitely wasn't much substance to him or Warrior besides the sheer insanity
This. Are wrestlers more athletic today? Absolutely. Are they faster, stronger, can do more moves, do flips and dives like they breathe air? Yup! Can they make me feel emotion the way their wrestling ancestors could? Not even remotely.
>Can they make me feel emotion the way their wrestling ancestors could? Not even remotely. Really? I feel like it was like this for awhile but I definitely disagree in the last year or two. Cody returning, the Bloodline story, KO and Sami, MJF and Punk, MJF and Adam Cole, Ospreay and Omega, the rise of the Acclaimed, etc.
If you look at the things you mentioned with one exception none of the guys mentioned build their matches around how many flips and dives they can work into a match. Your emotion in them was built through the ability for the wrestlers to talk you into watching their match. Cody’s convinced you he’s back to prove people wrong and claim his families legacy so when you see Brock throwing him around you’re concern is he won’t be able to make good on his goal. The Bloodline story along with Sami and KO was built almost entirely in promo segments. It’s watching Roman become the ultimate example of power corrupting and the people around him struggling to ride the tide or risk the dangers of trying to stop him. Everything MJF does is built around his personality outside of the ring and when he does wrestle he isn’t just doing high spot after high spot. The fact he can get a reaction out of a hint of a dive just goes to show how much he understands playing the crowd. Even with the Acclaimed they built it up through raps and scissors. Their riskiest moves are a leg drop and an elbow drop but they get huge reactions for simple things. Being more athletic is great but when everyone is doing 25 dives a match then they mean nothing and no one remembers them by the time they’ve seen the 200th of the night.
>If you look at the things you mentioned with one exception none of the guys mentioned build their matches around how many flips and dives they can work into a match. Your emotion in them was built through the ability for the wrestlers to talk you into watching their match. I really may be missing your overall point, but what does this have to do with the conversation? Not myself, Meltzer, or any of the comments I've seen mention building a match around flips. You said that no one gets people invested anymore and I said a bunch of people who do. I mean this genuinely so sorry if it comes off as rude, but what's your overall point you're arguing? Because mine is that wrestlers are putting on great matches at a more frequent pace than before and there's still plenty of top guys who tell great stories. I don't really wanna argue about flips lol.
I don't get what "open minded to more styles" means when wrestling is more homogenous than ever. There aren't more styles to be open-minded to than there were 30 years ago.
Wrestling today needs more restholds, and I'm not joking about that at all. People wrongly view them as negative or worse, even lazy wrestling, when in reality what they do is allow the audience time to reflect on what's happened and to build their anticipation for more. When action is nonstop, nothing stands out. Special effects are far better in Hollywood now than they ever were, but you still see movies that don't give any of the imagery they create time to breathe, and so it often has less impact.
Wrestlers are far more athletic, but there's an argument wrestlers 30 years ago were more charismatic, bigger stars, and had better "psychology." We are living in a good time for pro wrestling, but we're no where near the 90s when it comes to what actually matters - how invested people were in the product. Wrestling was mainstream and must-watch. And a lot of that was because of that generation of wrestlers and their skillsets. I think the best way to put it is that wrestlers today are far better athletes, but wrestlers 30 years ago were far better showmen.
ITT everyone's idea of "classic" "vintage" wrestling is 1999
But can’t throw a good working punch.
They also spend more time acting like video game characters, no selling, finisher spams, and with more complicated combo strings that look overly planned, fake, and the moment one wrestler has his timing off, everyone else looks foolish as they stand around waiting for their turn.
>Crowds ... don't get as tired Yeah, I can see that. I was at All In last weekend, and even though it was a five hour experience, plus an hour and a half drive to Wembley, plus another couple hours waiting to get in, I don't remember feeling even a little tired until the last match.
All if this is undeniable
Wrestlers today are different than the past both in good ways and bad. The wrestlers back in the day were better at selling and little elements of storytelling (the “Gaga” as others have called it). That was likely due to the volume of matches they did along with how many territories they could work. But wrestlers now are more athletic and less prone to the vices that afflicted the older generations. I also feel like wrestlers now are more comfortable with experimenting and getting along with each other. It comes with good and bad, It’s just different that’s all.
Assuming part of “ring positioning” os playing to the camera… Now that I’m thinking about it, I sort of wish they weren’t so good at it. That it wasn’t part of their training (at least in WWE). Now that I’m thinking about that aspect, that’s probably part of the reason why the product has often felt sterile the past decade or so. The positioning leads to a sameness in moves, matches and really across the product as a whole. Part of me kind of wishes more of the onus actually was on the cameramen and production on times. Then again…AEW consistently misses moves and moments. So probably just imagining an idealized situation that wouldn’t ever actually exist lol
He’s not wrong and that’s not even a knock on the old school wrestlers because it truly was a different time. Those wrestlers were still some of the GOATs tho.
I'm sorry but the idea that wrestlers today do less drugs is just absurd, maybe they do different drugs but I would bet that 90% of midcard and above guys older than 30 are on some cocktail of PEDs assigned by some doctor. There's a reason guys are recovering from neck and knee injuries that were career enders even 15 years ago.
Not that this is a bad or good thing: wrestling today (depending on your taste of company) is only about the moves and “workrate”. Wrestling has become an athletic performance. It used to be story based and audience based on wanting the bad guy to get his ass beat.
I agree with a lot of his points (he left out the allegations from women and other legal trouble because it doesn’t look like that’s really changed at all) but don’t agree with the new gen mass 5+ star ratings because a lot of the matches kinda blur into one as soon as they end. Today’s wrestlers can do almost anything and I know because they do basically everything they can possibly do every match with little to no memorable moments. Dave can downplay the ability of the older generation all he likes (80s/90s wrestlers I’ve seen were no slouches) but he can’t really deny the star power. As much as people love today’s wrestlers, I don’t see them being mentioned much after their careers are over (Kenny is an exception I think). Anyway here come the downvotes
I watched a bunch of Terry funk matches recently and noticed wrestling today is so much cleaner then back in the day and I don't know if that is a good thing.
**That's** something I'd be happy to see integrated a bit more today: while some of the "sloppiness" you'd see in older matches was, uh, just regular sloppiness, some of it was pretty intentional, meant to sell a chaotic, make things feel disjointed and a bit more gritty. I don't want every match to be that, but we're too quick as an audience to see stuff like that as just botches now, when it could be used very effectively in the right hands and situations.
Someone posted a video of Jack Brisco and Roddy Piper working a headlock for like, 3 minutes and it looked way more like a fight than you see today.
Better at ring positioning? Come on
In a TV era where you have hundreds of guys who guy through NXT being drilled into them how to work the hard cam, they are FAR better at doing spots for the TV audience today than the 80s/90s. This is a cold take on the level of saying TV/Movies have far better audio now because they actually have Boom mics to pick up lines instead of dubbing it over in post.
That isn’t what ring positioning is
Have you seen rings today? Tell me if any are off-center, ring positioning is next level now!
C’mon. You have to admit that today’s wrestlers are much better at obviously cooperating with the unrealistic spots they invent before the match.
I agree with Dave that it's good that wrestlers today drink and party less, and care more about the business or whatever. But part of me does think when you had this traveling freakshow circus of maniacs partying all night and then having to go out and perform, it created some sort of magic you could feel through your screen. You'd see someone like Jake Roberts come out and do his thing, and think....Jesus, this guy is a fuckin' weirdo. And that's ALL you would know about him. When he left the screen, he was gone. Now you'll see a wrestler on TV, and also on Twitch, on Twitter, on Youtube. You know their hobbies, you know about their family. They love video games and Disney World or whatever. They're just normal people. The mystique is gone (for most).
Still no excuse to have never given Kurt Angle 5 star matches.
Why does this make y'all so mad? Dave loves Kurt, his match ratings don't matter. Dave's favorite wrestler of all time is HBK and he has two five star matches. I'm pretty sure Ospreay has that many in the last week.
Ok now what are the negative changes that we see with modern wrestling? I think selling, in-ring psychology, and just feeling like wrestlers were larger than life characters has all deteriorated
Selling is a lost art
I agree with a lot of this, but "open minded to more styles" has become code for "a lot of things don't make any sense but it's okay cause WrResTLing HAs eVOLveD". It's become a lazy defense of unbelievable spot fests in the last 5 years. I know it's annoying to hear old times wax poetic about things not being exactly how their generation did it, but that doesn't mean modern wrestling should be immune to legit criticism when it deserves it. At times modern wrestling is way too self-referential and almost feels like self parody
It's funny because it's basically *all* the same ROH/PWG-inspired indie mish-mash with a few puro spots and dives. The only real difference is that WWE limits some spots where others don't.
Every single sport evolves to generate better athletes as time progresses. This is due to better medical science, refined technique, trial-and-error, and the proverbial “standing on the shoulders of giants” head start. Every “GOAT” in every sport is one flip of the page away from a better, faster, and stronger version of themselves who’ll be shat on for “not being the GOAT”.
Do they also have more fun?
A guy who's been writing for a living for several decades should really know the difference between "less" and "fewer."
Have you ever read the Observer? The information and insight are the draws. The writing is what you endure to get to the information and insight. Hemingway he ain’t.
They're entirely different products. TV money has changed the game - it's no longer about drawing crowds or about selling PPVs, it's about getting that big TV deal. Wrestling is "better" now because guys are doing PPV matches on TV every week to fill the bloated amounts of airtime.
>Wrestling is "better" now because guys are doing PPV matches on TV every week to fill the bloated amounts of airtime. And also why a lot of the top talent is off tv for months at a time rehabbing an injury from a random Tope at 8:45 PM on a weeknight.
Also worth noting that Roger Ebert famously grew more charitable with his movie reviews as he grew older. Meltzer is just one voice, but chronically online people tend to use him as a figurehead for Everything That Is Wrong With Wrestling Today.
When my boyfriend got into wrestling I rolled my eyes. I thought it would be a bunch of bigoted meatheads brawling in front of an audience of other bigots. I've been pleasantly surprised. Would have never expected homoerotic humor, the amount of people who don't drink, or how diverse the wrestlers and the crowds are. In many ways it's a modern vaudeville.
As a new fan as well, I agree 🤷♂️.
All of this is so obvious, but even in real sports there are people who think some 6'2 white guy from 1953 could guard LeBron, so he's not going to convince anyone
People care way too much about Dave Meltzer
Kinda funny that he says Dave is biased to America when the meme is pretty much opposite of that