2010 Pro Wrestling Thread

Ilmago: I just think it's strange you answer your own questions.

 

Why is it strange? I want you guys to know my opinions on the questions asked as well. If someone doesn't agree with one of my answers, or feels the need to correct me it's a great way to start a debate.

 

I was half-joking, dude.

 

I've got a very, very, very important question. One that I want the whole board to answer ...

Who better than Kanyon?

 

I think the Montreal Screwjob was, if not the death of kayfabe, then the beginning of the end. You had the dirt sheets giving you a peek behind the curtain before that, but the Screwjob was really the first time backstage politics were aired that publicly.
It was also right around the time that Vince McMahon "admitted" that wrestling was entertainment, and not sports, to get the tax breaks. In addition to all that, it was right at the height of the Monday Night Wars and the rise of the internet. The Screwjob and its fallout kind of gave wrestling a push into the mainstream, and with it came some extra scrutiny. With more people watching, they had to play up the entertainment angle so as not to appear silly, which meant treating the wrestlers like actors instead of true sportsmen.

All of that kind of ties into the "did the internet ruin wrestling" question, as well.
For a time, I think it did -- mainly because of Vince Russo. His writing during the dying days of WCW was intended to appeal to the people who trolled the internet in those days, which is like appealing to comic book nerds to factcheck a movie script.
In the long run, I think it's been beneficial to wrestling. The best performers have found a way to use it to their advantage. We might not be as hot for Bryan Danielson and C.M. Punk today if it weren't for internet buzz about their performance on the indy circuit.
Chris Jericho, I think, is more appreciated for his ability to play multiple roles than he would've been in past decades. People look at him as a gifted performer instead of someone who's a "good guy" one week and a "bad guy" the next.
Similarly, I think Shawn Michaels' career benefited in a weird way. His reputation as a douche in the 1990s was fueled, in part, by internet gossip. Seeing the way he finished his career, and realizing he had genuinely changed as a person, you more fully appreciate the hard road he took to get there. Instead of cheering him after his last match just because he was a gifted wrestler, you cheered him because you liked the person he became and how he got there.

 

EVERYBODY!

 

Flipping around the channels tonight, I came upon TNA, which I watch once in a while. It just doesn't keep my interest.

On the show was Foley vs. Flair, in a Last Man Standing Match, although it was announced as a Falls Count Anywhere match (this is TNA, where things are as messed up as late 90s WCW).

Anyhoo, they both put on a decent show, although we're talking about a 62-year-old man who supposedly retired 2 1/2 years ago and a 45 year old man who supposedly retired 10 1/2 years ago. Foley took a nasty bump when he was thrown off the stage through a table. Flair took a backdrop (or in his usual way, a sidedrop) into thumbtacks and had his face run into by a barbed wire board.

The finish was dumb, as Flair jumped off the top rope and landed on Foley on a table. Table breaks, both guys sell it. Of course being TNA, there was the typical screwup. Ref begins counting, Foley crawls into corner and sits. Flair wobbles to feet, does his face flop into some thumbtacks, and the ref rules that Foley wins, even though Foley wasn't actually standing.

Then Flair had promised to kiss Foley's ass if he lost, so Foley tells him to come back, (A great Foley line: "Now's not the time for fighting, now's the time for kissing.") Flair wobbles to ring, refuses to do it, then Flair's group comes down, beats on Foley until the ex-ECW guys come down for the save.

It wasn't a bad segment, but it was sad, in a lot of ways.

And that ends my TNA report for tonight.

 

If TNA is still resorting to using Flair or Foley in a match, then you know the product is bad.

Why can't they just hang it up already?

 

Thank you. I still can't believe how crazy that match was. It had great wrestling techniques in the ring and amzing showmanship out of it. That made me really get into wrestling again. Then college ended, the real world hit and I lost track. As soon as Angle left WWE and Shane dropped out I was done with it, aside from the quick glance every now and then.

ENJOY THE HIGHLIGHT CLIP

 

Titletown reclaims its moniker tonight ...

 

Well there goes my $35. And the PPV hasn't even started yet!