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I would say that within this last year my interest in pro-wrestling has steadily declined.  Mostly, I stay up to date with reading the results on the web, but rarely does anything motivate me to watch it anymore.  I TiVo most shows like Smackdown and TNA Impact, but I hardly get around to watch them.  I practically have stopped watching the WWE while with TNA, I occasionally force myself to check it out.  Not very complimentary, although I do consider myself a hardcore pro-wrestling fan.  So what happened?

Pro-wrestling just sucks these days.

I think with the WWE after Chris Benoit had committed the double murder/suicide act, I lost interest in them.  Eddie Guerrero's death was a stunner for me and just went down from there.  From that, there really hasn't been any single person that has stimulated my interest.  Either they're overpushed (John Cena), talentless or relegated to a position that has no hope (Gail Kim).

With TNA, I tried giving the Hogan-Bischoff era a chance.  However, I feel things just don't go anywhere with them.  Too much talking still, not enough action, no long term planning and just boring in general.  The promos are all stagnate.  Everyone tries to be a smartass, people keep turning, same crap.  And of course, Vince Russo hasn't been fired yet as much as the entire industry has wanted.

But there's something else that has lost my interest in general.  Pro-wrestling, the art form, is gone.  The thing is that matches look like shit.  Sure, I'll admit that the moves are more spectacular, but it all looks like crap.  I'm not watching "wrestling" anymore.  I'm watching a stunt film or better yet a video game.

With many people contributing to sites like YouTube old pro-wrestling content, I often check out videos from the 80's and early 90's from shows that I've missed.  Sometimes I'll even check out truly old school matches from the 60's and 70's with guys like Billy Graham, Giant Baba, Bruno Samartino, etc.  Add the promos from those days and I realize how screwed up the industry has become.

The first thing that pro-wrestling has lost is the simplicity of what a match really is.  Back in the day, you had people trying to put others in holds that their opponents would have to figure out how to get out of.  If person A put a headlock on person B, how would they be able to reverse it?  Can they reverse it?  What happens if they reverse it?  What will they use to reverse it?  Will the reversal intimate their opponent being injured, taken by surprise?  The thing is that you don't see holds anymore.  You see restholds.  In fact, you only see crappy chinlocks that last for 10 seconds until the crowds starts chanting boring, in which guys will then throw people against the ropes and execute a fancy move that looks cool, but makes no sense in the context of a match.

Let's take guys like Mysterio vs say Jay Lethal as an example.  One of the key differences between Mysterio is that he shows he knows how to mat wrestle.  I haven't seen his current matches, but back when he started in WCW, you can see that he was incorporating a lot of mat wrestling before he dished out his high flying offense.  I haven't seen Lethal execute one hold in between his key spots since I started watching him.  That goes for many younger guys.  Instead, they throw out fancy moves to make themselves behave more like an arcade game with a very limited move set than people who understand what to do in a situation.  What happens if the match breaks down?  What if it's a tag match and someone's partner gets legitimately hurt?  How do you improvise?  Can you improvise?

Also, there's too many big moves in these matches.  Or at least big moves without context.  People will throw out a somersault in the middle of a match or say something deadly like a death valley bomb.  But it won't be the finish.  Instead, these moves have no order.  There is no build.  Just throw out the next big move to get a quick pop.  And if there's a big move, people kick out.

Old school wrestling often would explain the dangers of a move.  Take a sleeper hold.  A heel like say Nick Bockwinkel, would use in his promos the dangers of a move and demonstrate what makes his deadly or their opponent's illegal.  So when the match does take place the audience would be aware if they saw that move that it's a big deal.  You have no such talk about moves anymore.  No one explains why their finishers are so deadly.  Finishers have no meaning in that context.  Worse yet, people kick out of finishers easily.  It's not something like a sleeper hold, but crazy moves that should in theory kill someone.

One of the worst match finishes that I hate is when both opponents use their opponents' moves against each other.  Usually, you'll see this on so-called "big matches".  Kurt Angle matches are notorious for this.  However, you don't hear why people are justified in doing this in a match.  There are no promos leading to that finish.  How hard would it be to simply have an opponent say in a pre-match promo, "I figured out how you do your move and I'm gonna slap it on you to embarrass you?"  Instead, the finish is thrown out without any build.  Why do something like this?

Then you get to overly used gimmick matches.  Yes, the IWC has spoken about the overabundance of gimmick matches.  In my case, I find most gimmick matches to be boring.  These are used as cheap excuses for lazy bookers (i.e. Vince Russo) to employ when they're clearly out of ideas.  Honestly, they're completely unnecessary.  The best matches are one-on-one where you want to find out which guy is better.  I don't see how hard it is to set up these types of matches.  People want to wrestle person X because he's higher on the rankings.  If you can beat person X, you move up, make more money and get closer to the title.  Simple logic for a simple concept.  Instead, we get some convoluted storyline that somehow justifies why a gimmick match is necessary.  Too much work.

But here's where I really think matches stink.  There is nothing sports-like about it anymore.  And matches look like shit.  As I said, matches look like a video game rather than a match.  Sure, you need athletic ability and skill to execute these moves.  But you don't have a random feeling factor.  It all looks scripted, either too perfect or contrived.  Seems like people want to do the most complicated moves that look cool.  But these moves are so difficult to execute, it requires a tremendous amount of setup and cooperation to handle.  The only kind of moves I appreciate that should be complicated are those requires to lock your opponent up in order for them to figure out how to reverse.  But I hate seeing situations where you get three people stacked in a corner where you predictably have something like a tower of doom move used.

Obviously, we probably won't head back into the old school style anytime soon (if ever again).  And maybe that's fine to a degree since some of the old stuff was stagnate.  The shame is that I don't think people at the moment understand how to blend things together.  The best wrestlers that were able to do that were guys like Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Jushin Liger, Eddie Guerrero, etc.  But that generation is gone practically and it seems that the take away from their era was the coolness of the state of the art moves, as opposed to how they were using them.

That said, I could bear these format of pro-wrestling.  But I can't handle the promos and booking anymore.  Promos are completely stagnate.  Everything has to be "personal" and everything has to be a smart mouth in order to get over.  I was watching the ME Generation kids on the stick.  Someone obviously gave them some pointers on how to be cocky.  But their promos were so contrived looking I wanted to turn off my TV.  Cocky smile?  Check.  Slow speech so everyone can understand?  Check.  Slow speech so these guys won't fuck up?  Check.  Selfish promo?  Check.  Emo-ism?  Check.  Smartass?  Check.  Which pro-wrestler doesn't do that these days?  It's either smart ass, emo, or postal.

Want to see great promos?  Check out Roddy Piper from 84-86 (pre-mullet Piper is the best).  He had his own style and character.  He did his own version of Socrates in the way he would interview his guest, getting them to slowly move to the conclusion he'd set up for them.  And he always would force his opponents to go to HIS pace.  He would say, "Wait!  Wait!  You mean to tell me...XXX."  But at any rate his interviews always had a purpose.  Sometimes the punchline would be to get a fan to admit that Hulk Hogan was their favorite wrestler.  Or he would use that against someone.  One of my personal favorites from Piper was when he tied up a midget when the midget had said Mr T was going to kick Piper's ass.  Piper and Bob Orton Jr proceeded to tape the midget's mouth up and shaved his head to look like Mr T.  Even though I laughed my ass off, you can't help but think what a prick this Piper is.

Another great guy to listen to is Ole Anderson.  Usually, he was heel but he kept his interviews focused.  Typically, it involved describing in detail how he'd tear his opponent apart (mostly Dusty Rhodes).  He brought up intensity and would remind the audience about when he and his opponent would fight.  So he's always thinking about time and place, kinda like a lunch brawl in high school.  But he didn't have to ramble on to get his point across.  Same with Ted DiBiase who managed to stay in character with a punch line in all his interviews as the Million Dollar Man.

Of course, you can never go wrong with Bobby Heenan and Jim Cornette.  Heenan was great because of his wit.  He'd always keep you laughing, but he was the original smart ass.  However, no one to this day can be even close to this guy because of how fast he was (is!) mentally.  Everything was original.  He probably could've made a second income as a comedian because he knew how to exaggerate and observe everything around him.  The key to him though wasn't just the fact that he made you laugh and made you want to see his ass getting kicked (because it would be funny the rare times he'd get caught).  He still remained focused on his challengers and the people he managed.  With his Heenan Family gimmick, he would use his ability to exaggerate how great his members were while he'd denigrate (in creative ways) his opponents.  And you knew whoever he'd manage would be dangerous because he was involved, giving all the smart input to his team.

Cornette was the fast talking kid you wanted to slap.  His high pitched voice, conceited promos and image as a momma's boy whenever he promoted the Midnight Express would add the flash to natural abilities of the MEs.  He definitely was the icing on the cake for their talents.  But again his promos were always focused.

These days, you don't see a lot of focused promos.  I feel that they're boring because they meander for half a century without making a point.  In my view, promos should never exceed a minute because they lose force quickly.  Maybe 3-5 minutes at most, but the average promo should be kept succinct.  Worse yet, we have these backstage clips that don't add anything of value to pro-wrestling.  The so-called "entertainment" clips.  In the past, the closest thing we'd get were on location vignettes that would help describe a character being introduced to the promotion.  We don't see as many of these since most people have to get over by cheap heat, fancy moves or by the love of a promoter.  But the backstage clips are the most time consuming wastes both companies are responsible in dishing out.  Supposedly, they add more realism by giving you a sneak peak of what's going on backstage.  However, for something like pro-wrestling which has traditionally been a live event, it completely takes away from the show and is unfair to the live audience.  I feel that most occurrences should center in front of the audience, not to the side, not pre-taped.  I would prefer those minutes to be given to matches instead. 

Then you get some skits that are pre-taped.  The worst offender for me was the Dukes of Steiners skit from WCW, where Hall, Syxx and Nash ran the Steiners off the road.  At that stage, it's not pro-wrestling anymore.  It has nothing to do with anything.  It's just a way for a promotion to say that they have some extra money to waste.  I'm certain some genius backstage argued that it was supposed to promote the "heat" between both teams and the anarchic nature of the NWO.  Well, if that were true, the Steiners easily could've sued Hall, Syxx and Nash, went to court and did a cross promotion with Judge Judy and won.  The prison video of Hall, Syxx and Nash probably would've been more entertaining at that point.  At the end of the day, you still need logic and boundaries to guide things and pro-wrestling should really be kept to a more limited boundary.

Either way, the problem is that I keep bringing up the word "stagnate."  Yes, everything has been done.  Or has it?  Is the route to a bigger audience more ridiculous skits?  I don't think so.  I think the stagnation lies in the central idea that there is a championship belt and there are people attempting to climb the ladder to obtain that belt.  Or rather the lack of this idea being used across promotions.  There is no upward mobility in these promotions.  It's rare to see people "move" except between promotions at this stage to get their next raise (or job) and potentially a quick belt to utilize when they hop one more time elsewhere.  But you never ever anymore get the feeling of how a person can move up the ladder, especially a younger one.  You could argue in TNA Kurt Angle is doing this.  But what good does beating each opponent in a "I quit match" for Kurt Angle?  What good does it in terms of the random, sports-factor?  We know the outcome already because we figure that he's not quitting.  So for Kurt Angle and the promotion it really does no good for this angle to take place.

When I say career movement, I'm talking about a young guy who's trying to make it.  You don't see stories like that.  If you do, it's way too contrived.  Like Sheamus.  You see no true growth in the guy.  It's more like one day he goes from a bean instantly to the bean stalk.  But that's not realistic.  More than that, psychologically you can never get into the person because of how contrived the push feels.  The WWE can get away with it because they are the WWE and people buy the brand, not the people.  But as a booking philosophy it's completely flawed.

Growth means that someone starts out sucking.  They're trying to break in and are learning.  They start off looking green, get their asses kicked on a nightly basis.  But each time, they get better.  They refine themselves over time and pick up small wins.  When they start taking on the established wrestlers, they lose but they learn what to do by studying their opponents.  No one "watches" tapes anymore it feels in terms of how they're presented.  When they get into a program with the main eventer or champion, they lose because the champion is that good.  So they wrestle them more and more until one day, they figure out how to counter the champion's hold or outsmart him.

There is no storylines like this anymore in pro-wrestling.  It's the quintessential bildunsgroman (sp?) where people move upward.  The story of growth.  The audience likes that person because they live vicariously through them.  They want to see this guy succeed because he's trying hard and embodying what most people can't do.  He's a clear representative of the people. 

Instead, what you get are people who complain.  Or you get no sense of order and establishment.  Or maybe you do but it's more like people vying backstage to get that title, rather than improving and smartening up inside the ring (or in their promos) to obtain the title.  But again, the focus is not in the ring which makes people apathetic to that aspect.

Paul Heyman had a great interview when he was at a UFC event.  It actually occurred after, I believe.  But the one major take away that struck me was how he would fire everyone over 40 in TNA (which is a primary reason why he's probably not there).  Heyman's vision would be to hire young guys, people in their 20's because he's looking for that home run hitter that's going to hit him more home runs for the next 20 years.  And he talked about molding the guy to the pro-wrestler he wants.  In business, this isn't uncommon.  Get a young talent right out of school, train them and make them loyal to the brand you're building.  When you get an old timer (say a developer like myself), they get a certain image of how things should be.  So it's tougher to deal with them because their ideas (while right or wrong) are already set.  As a result, the vision you're attempting to build with the company will be constantly plagued by people who resist what you want as the leader.

The second thing that struck me that Heyman did not mention was that pro-wrestling really belongs to young people.  Let's face it, pro-wrestling is physically taxing.  The younger you get the person, the more longevity you can grab out of their careers.  This is where WWE gets these two concepts and TNA just has no clue.  TNA believes that you have certain brand names associated to your brand like Ric Flair, Mic Foley, ex-ECW guys, etc.  But they can't go at the same rate for a sustainable period.  And as veterans they can demand more money.  The equivalent analogy is say Ralphs vs your local mom-n-pop liquor store.  Lets say that mom-n-pop store just started selling Pepsi.  Why would I care about that mom-n-pop store when Ralphs is so much more accessible and sells far more brands that I recognize?  How would I be informed that this mom-n-pop store is now selling Pepsi?  Even if the mom-n-pop store sell pepsi for cheaper, why would I go there?  Maybe it's in a bad location that's inconvenient for me.  That mom-n-pop store might get more brands but until they give me a great reason to switch from Ralphs, I'll keep going to Ralphs.

And this goes back to Heyman talking about the branding concept for TNA.  TNA at the moment does not have an identity.  I have no idea what TNA is supposed to be about.  They truly are a wannabe WWE.  I think that the original direction that they wanted to take the product has veered too far off the map and moved straight into the WWE's territory.  Except they have no idea what the "alternate" means.  At this point, the "alternate" simply means more stupid spots and a work environment for people who can't make it in the WWE anymore.  That's the brand that they're pumping out, which is why people shit on them so much.

In the WWE's case, I can somewhat forgive them.  McMahon's vision has always been about competing with the Disneys of the world.  He's never straight out said that he was in it for being the best pro-wrestling promotion.  It goes with the moniker entertainment.  For him, the glitz and glamor are the show.

What I can't forgive in both promotions' cases is that they've become too much of a by-the-numbers industry.  I want to blame people like Dave Meltzer, the IWC and other dirt sheets for putting a lot of emphasis on numbers for these numbers of years.  I'm sure back in the day WWE was concerned about numbers, but it seems like since the Monday Night Wars, the emphasis was placed even more so by online sites that talked about the ratings and PPV buyrates rather than focusing on the quality of the shows.  Heyman pointed out another of TNA's weaknesses when he mentioned how the people there seem to scrutinize Fridays for the breakdowns of their TV shows, rather than focusing on long term growth.  Heyman, of course, is absolutely right on the money.

I read from Eric Bischoff's twitter how he talks about how numbers don't lie.  Well, Bischoff, when you put that much emphasis on numbers, you get the economic meltdowns we've experienced in the past decade.  Now, the world economy is totally fucked up because people are looking almost exclusively at numbers and allowing the accountants and lawyers to make decisions where the product people should be reigning supreme.  Here's the thing Bischoff and others who believe in numbers: if numbers don't lie, then why hasn't TNA historically succeeded in boosting their ratings since 2007?

I don't think getting pro-wrestlers from opposing companies is a bad thing.  For one, these people need jobs.  Simple fact.  Two, this act has been done throughout the history of pro-wrestling.  Look at the territories back in the day.  People switched far more often back then because there were tons of choices for wrestlers if a promoter (or the wrestler) pissed one another off.

Where I have problems in this philosophy is putting all their eggs into one basket.  Finding that panacea to solve everything.  In TNA's case, the only two guys I can solidly say were great procurements were Christian and Kurt Angle.  It's because they had something to contribute to TNA, which were great matches.  Christian for himself improved massively in TNA.  I didn't really care for him much in the WWE, but the minute he stepped into TNA, he took himself to a new level.  Maybe everything didn't improve, but his matches were tighter, he added moves and he looked more sound.  I would add Gail Kim to that mix but she didn't get enough of a chance to shine.

But at this point using acquisitions to theoretically boost ratings is a poor move.  It's more for quick pops, maybe a quarterly hour boost, but that's it.  Going back to the analogy, it's like the 10-20 people that found out the mom-n-pop store got pepsi who might live nearby.  But that's it.  If the mom-n-pop store are lucky, these customers might return.  However, I strictly doubt that they'd return because the mom-n-pop store added Snickers to their candy selection.

At any rate, I'll probably stick with online news to get my updates.  But my feeling is this situation won't change any time soon.  I have my own vision of what pro-wrestling should or can be.  However, it's doubtful to see that vision in my lifetime.