Does Wrestling Matter?

[TheeDivineJaguar]

Ladies and gentlemen does wrestling really matter in America it seems as a joke but in reality and virtual reality there are those who care for all the great intricate details that combine and mesh to create great unorthodox styles. So? within that question lies greater truth as we stride to unlock the secret doors of wrestling to viewers and expand to greatness. What is your outlook on this topic?

[Sylas Styles]

Wrestling matters, to me and my circle of friends.

I'm also an independent wrestler, so that would explain it. I wrestle, promote, and book for two indy feds locally, while working a select few within a 2 hour drive of my home town.

Wrestling has mattered to me for as long as I can remember. From my early memories of watching the NWA, to tapes that my father had "traded" to view Japanese wrestling, to the "WWF & WCW". I've been captivated not by the entertainment aspect, but by the athleticism of the competitors. I studied every match, every wrestler, every manager as close as humanly possible, to pick up pointers because "I was going to make it!". It helped! It helped a great deal.

I can't imagine my life without wrestling being a focal point. I just picture a boring life, working a 9-5 job, getting by on horror movies for my entertainment.

[Alex Stryder]

Wrestling matters to me but most of the entertainment value is now lost on me. For me I appreciate the athleticism and performance in ring over how well they can talk on the mic. I'm big on researching in Martial Arts and Wrestling especially in Japan. I do believe that during the early 70s to the late 90s NJPW trained their wrestlers to be real fighters....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnHmKPSYxPo

this actually was one of the catalysts to shoot style wrestling then what we now know as MMA.

whether they do this now I don't know but at least at this time wrestling did matter.

[afrobandito]

A Wrestler's in-ring ability does matter to me, but the guy's gimmick is important as well. That's sorta the reason why I'm not too big of a fan of Tyson Kidd. Dude's a great competitor, a real workhorse as Punk said before, but aside from that, Tyson just seems bland in my opinion.

On another note, I believe that WWE has been putting on some more great matches than usual, with the inclusion of guys like The Shield, Antonio Cesaro, and several guys from NXT.

[Sylas Styles]

I'm hoping Tyson Kidd comes back with a cockier "better than you" gimmick, maybe as a 4th Heyman guy. That way, Heyman can do all the talking, Tyson can add a few lines, and let his wrestling do the talking for him while he grows on the mic. Even if they played up his "Canadian" nationality claiming he's the best Canadian WWE import ever.

[TheeDivineJaguar]

yeh I agree with all your statements so far and I do think that 70 to 90 ajpw is great and I am going to start learning today and implement them into to virtual me Alon Morningstar.as well what are your thoughts on identifying a gimmick with the moves in your own view?

[Hana Brightly]

Wrestling definitely matters to me. It's like the one thing all my friends share, we all like professional wrestling to some extent. For me, it's more about the characters presented than their in-ring abilities, though I can appreciate the work wrestlers do. Can't really say I hate the Tyson Kids, the Doug Williamses and Lance Storms, but I loved it when Storm had the horrible hip-hop dancer gimmick (but dancing gimmicks get so over for me, Scotty 2 Hotty was my favorite wrestler in the late 90's. No, he's not my World Champion in WWE'13, shut up!)

Though, as I'm writing this I realize that this topic is about the in-ring abilities. XD YES, IT MATTERS. I cringe whenever horribleness happens in the ring. Like any Miz match. Any time Kaitlyn does anything other than a spear. Whenever Jinder Mahal and Richie Steamboat put on 0 star classics. WSU under their previous management. I can look past it sometimes. I can't get bored watching Kaiju Big Battel for instance. The wrestling is horrible, but the whole concept makes me love it. Ryback's entire persona (something was just so badass about the way the left the ambulance insync to his theme music.) Alicia Fox. I love Alicia Fox.

If I were run into Alicia Fox at the mall, I'd probably hide and stalk her, but not in a way that was creepy and weird.

>_>
<_<

If there is such a thing.


I'll make characters sometimes who are intentionally horrible in the ring. Such a Hana Brightly and Strawberry Sookie, who are deliberate opposites of one another. I watch all the wrestling I can, and I appreciate the art of the sport. It's hard for me to really hate anything, and the one wrestler I hated, Zema Ion, recently got a tumor. So I'm now very scared of hating anyone, thinking it's my fault. So, Miz better not get super sick any time soon, otherwise I may have to stop watching wrestling all together to avoid the horrible karma.

I LIKE WRESTLING, SO SHOULD YOU! *thumbs up*

[cornzone4]

I AGREE WITH HIDAMARIBREAD, FROM NOW UNTIL FOREVER, ONE OVEN UNDER BREAD.

But seriously I do agree with the food product. Wrestling's cool and all, but you gotta give me a reason to want you to win, give me a reason to care. You can do a million flips, you can be the greatest technical wrestler in the world, if you're boring as hell, I don't really care about you~

I will gladly take David Otunga and his bowties over Davey Richards and his "lolimsobadass" promos anyday.

An example is Emma in NXT, from the second she showed up, before her match even began, right when they announced her as "Emma" and nothing else, I loved her. I mean, cmon. Her name is EMMA, NO LAST NAME, NO MIDDLE NAME, NO WORRIES. And then the dance happened, the single greatest thing to happen to the world of dance since foreverness. She could only do headlocks for her entire match (I mean, Randy got away with it for yeeaaarrrsss, amirite?), I don't care, it's the highlight of the show cause I want her to win more than anything.

So yeah, being a great wrestler is a nice addition and I love when they can put together a great match, but the reason a match is great for me is because I care about the outcome. It's the exact reason i don't watch MMA, I don't care about the outcome because everybody seems so bland to me, cause they're themselves, they don't care about entertaining, all they want is to win.

Overall wrestling does matter, I just don't think it matters quite as much as charisma, and characters. Which is the exact reason an entertainment show like WWE is the #1 wrestling company in the world while a great wrestling company like NJPW (which I do actually love) isn't.

I think it can be BEST summed up with this:
When I look up and down the wrestling rosta, I see nothin but a bunch of fake tough guys, a FUGAISE if you will. And they all think everybody's real, until they see a real situation enter the room. Kind of like how everybody is a G until a real G enters the room, if that helps you understand what I'm getting at better.

BA DA BOOM
REALEST GUY IN A ROOM~

[Hana Brightly]

THAT'S WHAT'S UP.

[16BitJay]

I am late to this topic, but I felt like answering it also.

I'm not 100% sure on if this is specific to in-ring ability or wrestling as a whole, but I'll answer both points anyway.

Does wrestling matter to me now? Honestly not as much as it used to do; I'll admit my knowledge is limited to the WWF/WWE and some later WCW. I basically grew up watching WWF and my earliest memory is Hogan vs Yokozuna where the photographer blinded Hogan. I remember some of the others around that time such as Papa Shango, Rick Martel and Ultimate Warrior. Then at the start of the New Generation era we no longer had the channels to watch it as my parents split up and my mother couldn't afford them. At this time did I miss wrestling? To be honest no I didn't as I had many other interests at that time and in England wrestling really wasn't as popular as it was in the US so not many of my friends watched it.

Fast forward a few years to late 1998 and in a video store the cover of Unforgiven 98 tape caught my eye it had Undertaker who at that time I vaguely remembered from before; it was expensive £16.99 but I bought it anyway. I got home and watched it and enjoyed it enough to want to buy another which I believe was Capital Carnage which I enjoyed more. By mid 99 I had more of a collection and at school there were people who actually watched it too at this time. We'd mess about play wrestling on our break and lunch time too I was always Kane or the Undertaker because I towered over the others. I watched the videos up until around 2000 which is when they started showing PPVs on Channel 4 in the UK, the had commercial breaks which sucked but apart from that they were live and I was usually allowed the Monday off school so I could stay up and watch them live. At this time I became a big fan of Triple H because he wasn't a typical cowardly heel sure he liked to take the easy route, but if it came down to it he was good enough to win alone. Helped he also had the pedigree which is probably my favorite move, it was also around this time that I started to notice more of the wrestling moves so in-ring ability started to matter.

I remember that in 99 Channel 5 started to show a weekly show of WCW which I think was more of a highlight show than an episode of Thunder or Nitro, it was called Thunder but it didn't seem like a stand alone show at the time so I am not sure if it was the actual Thunder format or a highlight show. I watched on and off because to be honest the wrestling on WCW seemed obviously fake and I remember Lex Luger's piss poor selling and the super safe chair shots they did and it tended to put me off watching it. In 2001 WCW was no longer on channel 5 and channel 4 wasn't showing PPVs anymore, but we could finally afford Sky so I had regular access to wrestling or well WWF again. During this period there seemed to get more wrestlers rather than larger than life characters we'd been used to, which was good even though I liked the larger than life characters. I think the Ruthless aggression era was probably the most enjoyable time for me as it had a good balance of characters vs wrestlers. I remember Chris Benoit was a favorite of mine because of how legit he seemed, just the way he tried to apply that crossface to Big Show and hanging on like a bulldog made it believable when he brought him down.

On wrestling ability does it matter to me? Sometimes I think if they are at least competent at something whether it be brawling, power slams or technical stuff. I don't expect a massive move-set but if you are good at selling and the psychological aspect of wrestling it doesn't matter if you only do a handful of moves. My point is Hogan vs Warrior at WM6, neither I would say ever showcased great wrestling in WWF but they had good psychology and could work the crowd thus making that match enjoyable for me. So it is mixed though currently in WWE I find the lack of characters or the characters I don't like just stop me from watching regularly and has been the case for a while now.

So it does wrestling matter to me? As a whole now not really. In terms of ability it can matter to me. My mine wrestling source now is honestly through CAW and often it is the look of the CAW that is the major factor in whether I stay interested or not.

Phew!

TL;DR: Eh maybe, pretty CAWs