I saw Mike Birbiglia’s Don’t Think Twice this weekend and it got me thinking about pro wrestling.
It’s a movie about an improv troupe and a Saturday Night Live-type show, and the comparisons between that world and wrestling are abundant. But one thing that really struck me was a quote in the movie, where Miles (played by Birbiglia) is wondering if the show he loves and resents at the same time (sound familiar?) is actually any good. He obsesses over it and aims to even be a part of it, but, he says, “The great paradox of Weekend Live is that it never was great.” Weekend Live, the movie’s SNL stand-in, only ever reached its peak quality level when Miles was young and impressionable, and everything after that will always be secondary. On top of that, he wonders if what he was watching when he was young and impressionable was even that great in the first place.
And here we stand in discussion of professional wrestling. While endlessly fascinating to a certain niche of fan – was it ever really that great? With the benefit of hindsight, we can appreciate all the great performers and organizations of the past. That buzzy feeling of nostalgia can pop up for me any time I watch Royal Rumble 1992, the debut of Chris Jericho, old Big Boss Man matches. For every cool moment or match, though, there kind of was a whole lot of shit. And whether it’s a newspaper or a Prodigy chat or the Death Valley Driver message board or Twitter, there will always be a place to complain about that shit.
These days, wrestling fans tend to look back on individual matches or performers more so than entire blocks of TV. And I wonder – 20-30 years from now, what will people remember more from 2016 – the individual matches or performers, or being annoyed with the presentation of weekly cable TV (i.e.: 3 hour RAW, backstage skits, commentary, overscripting, etc)? If it’s the latter, and I think it will be, then this era will be looked back on very strongly. But in the now, when you follow this stuff week-to-week, you have to wonder – how will this shit be looked back on as great?
A wrestling match can be art, but wrestling television is something beyond art. Thoroughly enjoyable week-to-week live professional wrestling television seems to be an impossible task. I mean this is the biggest wrestling company in the world – how can’t they be any good at this?? Triple H did an interview with ESPN this week where he was asked about the criticism WWE gets, and his response literally boiled down to, “Well, how’s your territory doing?” And he’s right. The point is valid. But sometimes I wonder – is WWE the biggest territory because it’s good at what it does, or is it the biggest territory because it’s the biggest territory?
There was a lot of promise when Shane-O-Mac showed up calling for a New Era in the WWE – not because he’d bring in the Young Bucks or some shit but because him talking like he talked was a meta-admission by WWE that they know they’ve been stale for sometime. There’s the same complaints week after week and a lot of people in the business can laugh them off, but there are also a lot of the people in the business who can’t be stupid enough to think the current incarnation of WWE is wrestling or even just entertainment at its’ finest. So with NXT doing its’ thing week after week, and the interesting choices made during the first couple weeks of the Draft, for a second things might have been looking up. And there were still some fun matches and moments on the show, but taking in the entire show there was way too much of, “god damnit.”
For years, people asked for more in-ring quality, and WWE has answered that. Problem is, it feels like they forgot about the storytelling. Between over-scripted promos, muddled character motivations, and the same old lame “authority figure” tropes, “the product” struggles to be compelling. The wrestling doesn’t necessarily have to even be any good, it just has to matter. WWE pumps out a lot of solid/good matches but they just seem so soulless. I’ll take a Ron Garvin WCW squash match or even a fucking Jim Duggan match over Orton/Del Rio from this week, for example. But why do I, personally, prefer that? Is it because a Ron Garvin WCW squash is better than Randy Orton vs. Alberto del Rio? Or is it because Ron Garvin hearkens back to a simpler time? And was there a big wrestling fan watching stuff from the 50s, watching Ron Garvin, going “fuck this shit.” I don’t know. Either way, with hindsight I do know that even though he was a boring tough guy, Garvin was presented as a star, and it made everything he did that much more fun to watch.
Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. from Halloween Havoc 1997 is my favorite match of all time. The wrestling and athleticism is soooo incredible, but is it really as good as it is without Eddy G entering to the low rider theme looking greasy as hell with that dirtbag snarl on his face? C’mon WWE – make shit matter.
To WWE’s defense, the show with Eddie vs. Rey also had Jaqueline vs. Disco Inferno. So I don’t know. Has wrestling ever been great?
I went into these shows thinking that it was an important week to see if WWE could actually sustain the momentum from the last couple weeks. The new car smell had worn off, feuds were set up, and now they had to use the pieces they laid out to put on a compelling television show. And there was some good stuff, and then a lot of bad stuff. For every sweet squash match (Braun Strowman, American Alpha) or fun character development (Becky’s fired up babyface promo, Eva By God Marie doing her thing, Miz and Maryse coming close to fucking each other on camera, them actually doing something with Cesaro), there was a purposeless Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young match or an awkward brawl with SmackDown’s embarrassing tag division.
But let’s start with the WWE Network, which for a hardcore wrestling dork is really the greatest thing ever invented. And weekly NXT/CWC does not hurt. NXT was highlighted by what might have been Mojo Rawley’s best performance ever, with a solid promo and a crazy match with Joe that was short, to the point and felt like a real fight. Complete night and day difference between this presentation of Mojo and the main roster presentation of Mojo, where the Hype Bros are just suddenly a tag team and Mojo is basically just some crackhead who hangs out with Zack Ryder. The Shinsuke Nakamura/Samoa Joe pull-apart deal was well done too – really liked the security guards running down when Nakamura entered, a nice simple touch. Nakamura playing gotcha with Joe’s nose was incredible too. The rest of the show was solid – Andrade Almas looked good in his squash match and Bobby Roode is just crushing his first couple weeks, while Gargano and Ciampa have gotten into a nice rhythm and had a heckuva squash match. The Billie Kay/Liv Morgan match was a good attempt but nothing looked good. Authors of Pain squash was fun, though the complete apathy for TM61 attacking the Authors was hilarious. NXT is in this transition period where they’ve got to build up some marquee guys fast – they’ve done well with some guys like Gargano/Ciampa and Roode, but TM61 and Almas have been done no favors.
The Cruiserweight Classic, meanwhile, was amazing this week and the best top-to-bottom hour of WWE TV in a long long time. Two great matches and a couple of video packages – fuck yeah. Tajiri vs. Gran Metalik reminded me of a great New Japan juniors match, with some of the most engaging matwork on WWE TV in a while leading into some great flying by Metalik and crazy chops and kicks by Tajiri. All the big spots were built to well and made sense, and the crowd was game for everything. This was one of those matches that wasn’t blow-away great, but you kind of wish all wrestling was like it. Just so god damn solid and fun to watch. Kota Ibushi vs. Cedric Alexander was fucking phenomenal and the second truly great match of the CWC (after Gargano/Ciampa). The early exchanges were great, the dives were wild, the strikes were psychotic, and everything was hit at just the right moment. This was god damned kung-fu. Storytelling was on point with Cedric trying to keep up with Kota and Mauro/Bryan hard selling the time limit. They really went balls out in this one – it’s the type of match you don’t see on WWE TV often, for better or worse. You can’t run this type of match all the time – gotta protect the biz-ness and all that and can’t give the fans everything at once – but in this moment, Ibushi and Cedric were excellent at putting on that type of match. Also, the Cedric/HHH moment was an all-time awesome wrestling moment.
RAW unfortunately had more weak, boring stuff than good stuff. The insistence on having Seth Rollins and Finn Balor do long talky promos to build their SummerSlam match, the purposeless Darren Young/Titus O’Neil and Dudleys/Neville matches, and the weak Sasha Banks/Dana Brooke match were all hallmarks of darker times. There was still some good stuff though – the Braun Strowman squash and interview segments continue to be simple and genius, while we’re at 2 shows in a row where the first half-hour is all Enzo Amore and I can’t really complain about that. The Rusev/Lana/Reigns Wedding segment was fun, but kind of confirmation WWE is going back to old tricks. Cesaro had 2 good matches in like 2 hours, which is amazing. The match with Sheamus had some really impressive exchanges and just felt like both guys were going hard. And the Rusev match was tremendous – big drama, awesome slugfest, Rusev working the shoulder, and THAT POP for Cesaro lifting Rusev out of the Accolade. Cesaro is a good wrestler and was the all-star of this show, but if WWE continues with their presentation I don’t see how he becomes anything other than a guy who does good matches. As 1053 Ridge Brother Josh said – the worst of the 3 post-draft RAW’s, but still better than all the others.
SmackDown, meanwhile, is kind of scary right now. The show was tight and everything moved along pretty well given what they have – the American Alpha squash was top shelf, the Eva Marie angles are tremendous, the Ambrose/Ziggler saga isn’t terrible, the Becky Lynch babyface push continues to be fun, and the Miz and Maryse continue being assholes. But you also have a very small roster that at this point is relying on two weekly women’s matches when their roster has like 5 women. If this current roster is going to be having a brand-specific PPV, then you save that Carmella vs. Natalya match for $9.99, motherfucker. The tag division is laughably weak, and while Randy Orton/Alberto del Rio was a solid match it lacked a soul. The Heath Slater thing can be fun, but having Rhyno and Jinder Mahal as the only guys showing up for the brand split so far makes everyone in charge look useless. Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon as authority figures is terrible at this point too, as they’re basically acting like dweeby Sales Managers. Daniel Bryan’s a few shows away from warning Zack Ryder about hitting his quota.
With all this lack of depth, the C-shows are kind of sad right now. Main Event had a ‘RAW Showcase Match’ AKA a ‘SmackDown Doesn’t Have Enough Wrestlers for a Second Show Right Now Match’. The match in question was Jinder Mahal vs. Sin Cara, which wasn’t bad but just kind of happened. Hype Bros vs. Breezango was alright, but they really need to do something, anything with all four guys to make any of it matter. Superstars had another Jinder Mahal match, this time against Jack Swagger, and it wasn’t very memorable outside of Jinder doing a begging off spot which was appreciated. Sami Zayn vs. Curtis Axel was actually pretty good, with Axel beating on Zayn’s shoulder and Zayn being all fired up and whatnot.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Cedric Alexander vs. Kota Ibushi, easily… if that match didn’t exist, then it’s Tajiri vs. Gran Metalik, and if that didn’t exist, it’s one of Cesaro’s matches from RAW.
WWE TV MVP of the Week: With apologies to Cesaro, who had two good matches in two hours which is really impressive. But Cedric Alexander had a great match AND got WWE-acklnowledged “Please Sign Cedric” chants and an unplanned nod of approval from the King of Kings. I wanna see what happens to that guy.
