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AFTER MORE THAN two whole decades in various stages of mediocrity, ranging from mid to unwatchable, WWE is finally good again.

I’d been hearing murmurings of this for a while now. I never really bothered to actually tune in, as I’ve been hurt before by Internet wrestling pundits crying wolf and creaming their jeans over an angle or gimmick, only to find out that it sucks and that the pundit isn’t even old enough to have anything other than a retrospective appreciation of what a good gimmick or angle is supposed to be, and wouldn’t know one if it came to their houses, stole their jandals, and fucked their mums.

However, seeing Raw and SmackDown highlights on YouTube gradually diminished my scepticism. Then, after watching SummerSlam this past August, I was finally sold. Wrestling is back. Big time.

As a wrestling fan from a previous generation, I can’t help but use phrases like “going from black and white into technicolour” or “busting out of jail.” Which may sound pathetically hyperbolic until you take into account just how shit it was and for how long.

It’s not as if that’s news to anyone, especially non-fans who attempted to watch it at its most recent nadir. There’s no faulting the talent WWE had to work with. In fact, the level of in-ring talent globally has never been more ubiquitous than in the last decade-plus. But, for all the talent WWE had to work with, the quality was hampered on a creative level. One just couldn’t get through the shows; they were that boring and repetitive. This reflected poorly on fans. We got enough shit for watching wrestling, we got it double for watching shitty wrestling.

Whenever I would watch with non-fans, they would see the product and, before succumbing to boredom and bailing, would inevitably ask:

My only response would be to paraphrase Don McClean’s “American Pie” and explain, “That’s not how it used to be.” That it was not representative of what I thought was “proper” professional wrestling. Back then, critics would only have to tune into Raw or Nitro for one show to be silenced. My generation were fans of something completely different. Hell, wrestling fans from back in the territory days were fans of something completely different than that. To them, we were the arseholes who fucked up wrestling.

Although I can’t exactly blame them, to be fair.

Normally, I would have to explain to people the history of the business from the late 20th century through to now, WWE’s previous shit streak from the mid-nineties through to the new millennium, WCW’s hot streak from the mid 90’s to the new millennium, the reversal in fortunes for both companies, the death of WCW, the subsequent dominance of WWE, its continued decline and that of the business as a whole as their eyes glaze over while they consider whether boredom is enough justification for murder.

Now, all I have to do is send them SummerSlam 2024 highlights from YouTube.

This article aims to make the case to the non-fan, from my own experience, why someone like me would gravitate towards wrestling, what wrestling was in my day, what wrestling is like when it’s “in the zone,” and to clear up some misconceptions among non-fans, based entirely upon my purely uneducated opinion. The wrestling world is extremely opaque, and wrestling is as subjective as any other form of entertainment. Everyone gets something different out of it.

But also to explain why someone like “Old Man Evans” would even give a shit.

You have to understand that the wrestling that I knew and loved was unfairly snatched from my generation well before its time. It took two decades for it to return to its former glory. Had nature been allowed to take its course, we could have naturally gotten bored with it, like subsequent generations, and stopped watching on our own terms. Instead, we all had to sit here waiting for the WWE to get its shit together so we could fuck off and do other things before we literally grew old.

I didn’t tune into Raw and SmackDown all those miserable times for nothing, or pay WWE all of that money for live events and merch while I was still young, just to bail just as we’re getting the very thing we were tuning in for that whole time. I’m way too cheap to care if I’m being mature.

So, now that it’s finally happened, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if I pass up the opportunity to at least make up for lost time and catch some of the action just because it’s frowned upon. And with Raw and other WWE programming now on Netflix, damn straight I’m going to be tuning in again. At least for a little while, just so I can say I got my money’s worth. Then I’ll fuck off and get a life.

So, you can check out SummerSlam on the WWE Network, check out the highlights on WWE’s YouTube channel, watch Wrestlemania XL on Netflix (where available), Raw, SmackDown, NXT, or you can read the long version here (preferably the latter):

HOW I CAN WATCH THAT SHIT.

Firstly, a downturn in the wrestling business is nothing new and is quite normal, as with any industry. Wrestling is cyclical. For every major promotion, there’s a boom period. Then, for whatever reason, be it a change in leadership, creative direction, or the wrestling landscape at large, it cools off and enters a slump. The slump then continues until it becomes so unbearably dogshit, or the competition gets so good, that something has to give, be it a change in leadership, creative direction, or the wrestling landscape at large, thus necessitating drastic change, which leads to another boom period. Then rinse and repeat.

In fact, this happened in the WWE in almost identical fashion between 1995 and 1997. But a two-decade-long slump? Yeah, nah.

As to why, due to the insular nature of professional wrestling, one can only conjecture, but there are several potential factors commonly cited; the demise of WWE’s direct competitor, WCW (World Championship Wrestling, not “Woman Crush Wednesday”), led to a lack of competition and subsequent complacency, the rise of the Internet, corporate influence, societal changes, and… other factors.

Look, it is extremely difficult for any wrestling company to book a wrestling show these days. EXTREMELY difficult. Wrestling has been around for donkey’s years (centuries in one form or another), and everything has pretty much been done at this point. There are only so many times you can spam the “turn heel and form renegade faction” trope before it gets old. (More on that trope below.) You have to constantly innovate, and wrestling is a hard niche in which to do so.

So, since we’re not privy to the inner workings of WWE booking, I don’t want to point fingers.

But it’s pretty telling how quickly and how comprehensively WWE’s product improved when that guy left.

WHEN WRESTLING WAS COUNTERCULTURE.

Anyone whose only knowledge of pro wrestling is the dumbed-down, kid-friendly product presented by WWE in more recent years may be surprised at just how cool it used to be back in the day.

During the mid-to-late 90s, against the backdrop of alternative music and alternative culture, the explosion of the Internet, Internet cafes, and the wasteland that was late-night television, watching WCW and WWF programming was a much richer experience than it is now. Because it was so intertwined with 90s pop culture, it felt like more than just entertainment – it felt like a scene. There was a community aspect that transcended merely discussing it online; just the act of watching it felt almost as cultural an experience as hanging out in dingy coffee shops and listening to Soundgarden.

Here in New Zealand, wrestling shows would screen late at night. So, having infomercials and Sally Jesse Raphael on either side of WCW and WWF programming made it feel even more niche and, by extension, alternative. It was like Sally, but with chair shots. Even watching old WWF Livewire episodes on YouTube makes me miss the good old days. I can even remember thinking how much I like WWF’s slightly shittier production values compared to WCW’s slicker ones on the basis of how shit they were.

For context, WWE’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw, launched in 1993, with WCW launching their flagship show WCW Monday Nitro in 1995, with WCW having acquired the services of none other than wrestling G.O.A.T., and squeaky-clean good-guy Hulk Hogan around a year earlier.

This was a huge deal back then, as the top draw from the number one company was poached by what was, at the time, the number two promotion. Unfortunately for them, the Hulkster’s schtick had gotten old by this point. You know the routine. On a long enough timeline, when a cultural phenomenon eventually becomes passe and past its prime, it’s inevitably overthrown by a fresher, more exciting upstart.

It’s just that no one was expecting that the fresher, more exciting upstart would be the same fuckin’ guy.

At the Bash At The Beach PPV in 1996, a night that would change professional wrestling forever, he partnered up with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash (formerly Razor Ramon and Diesel of the WWF), who had mysteriously shown up in WCW shortly prior and raised all kinds of hell under the guise of a “WWF invasion” (unbeknownst to the WWF who would later file suit, forcing WCW to abandon this idea). At 1996’s Bash At The Beach PPV, in front of an unsuspecting fanbase, Hogan, the perennial babyface, would turn heel and, for the first time in his career, tell the Hulkamaniacs to quote:

This was unheard of at the time, especially since, back then, people didn’t expect much in the way of storytelling from professional wrestling. In kayfabe, Hulk Hogan decides on his own terms that what the world needs is less of his Hulkamania shit and more fine, upstanding citizens like NWA.

This wasn’t your average heel turn. First of all, nobody was angry about this. Technically they were – the audience threw beer cans and other crap into the ring – but were secretly pitching a tent the whole time. It was almost more of a plea for an encore than the ostensible display of anger it appeared on the surface (wrestling fans generally didn’t bring roses to shows). This kind of rage bait would become part of WCW’s appeal. Ubiquitous now but revolutionary then.

The wrestling world would also collectively pitch a tent over this heel turn, one that wouldn’t go down for eighty-three weeks. Not only was everyone sick of Hulkamania and the status quo to begin with, but everything changed that night. And I mean everything. They brought edgy, cerebral storytelling to a sport that traditionally existed in the same milieu as Saturday morning cartoons. The man orchestrated a revolution against himself. This was nothing short of genius. And people went nuts. Thus, the New World Order was formed.

After that, we were away laughing. Were it not for the nWo, wrestlers would still be coming to the ring as cartoon characters or guys with occupational gimmicks, like cops, accountants, and garbagemen. No more of that comic book shit. Gritty realism was the order of the day. Most of the roster would now wrestle as regular people under their real names. They would have more realistic motivations for feuding beyond just wanting the gold.

More than any other promotion, it came across like a bona fide sport, but one that had gone off the rails, with storylines that were believable, topical, edgy, rebellious, and reflected pop culture at the time (alternative music, hip-hop culture, metal, daytime television, etc). WCW would take wrestling from the dominion of Saturday morning cartoons towards the realm of counterculture. For the first time, wrestling was hip.

WCW Monday Nitro would shoot to number one in the ratings for eighty-three straight weeks, and WCW would dominate professional wrestling. Now that they were top dogs, they were famously sore winners and would start regularly stirring up shit with the WWF for the fuck of it. While the East Coast was beefing with the West Coast in the hip-hop world, WCW and the WWF would become embroiled in a North vs South wrestling war known as “The Monday Night War.” And everyone was there for it. With bells on.

WCW would antagonize the shit out of the WWF on Nitro, and the WWF would clap back on Raw:

The beef would continue to escalate, from trading insults to talent defections to inter-promotional sabotage and everything in between. Fans would then start to form allegiances along promotional lines. If you were a WWF fan, you would hate WCW and vice versa. You also had Philadelphia-based ECW, the third biggest promotion, whose fans hated them both.

Some people took it more seriously than others. Whether in good fun or genuine acrimony, each fan base would engage in flame wars on Internet message boards, as friends and families would endlessly argue over which promotion was better. Families were destroyed, and some would never speak again. In short, it was great.

This level of intense fan participation, if done in good fun, was a jolly good laugh and not the blight on the sport that it’s been made out to be. It was fun to have these debates and to feel like you were part of a team. People complain about tribalism today, but as long as it didn’t cross the line into being toxic, it was no different than the rivalries between sports teams. It wasn’t a big deal as long as it didn’t devolve into hooliganism.

THE RETURN OF THE WWF.

For the first time in history, Vince McMahon’s WWF was no longer “The worldwide leader in sports entertainment.” With WCW as king and being massive dicks about it on worldwide television, the company could no longer be obstinate. As much as McMahon was determined that a kid-friendly, advertiser-friendly wrestling product was what God intended, he faced an existential threat from the competition that had to be met head-on.

And holy shit, did they. Don’t get me wrong, the WWF had been gradually on the ascent for a while. Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels is one of the best rivalries in wrestling history. An armed and dangerous Steve Austin had already busted into Brian Pillman’s house live on Raw. Jerry Lawler was perfecting the heel commentator role, and Jim Ross was busy creaming his jeans on commentary.

However, to combat not only WCW’s dominance but also its cultural merit, they needed something drastic. As hip and counterculture as WCW was, they were, nonetheless, rated PG. The WWF would go in another direction. Influenced by Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, and the sex and violence of ECW’s programming, if WCW were going for controversy, the WWF would go for full-blown shock value.

What was once a low-brow source of mindless entertainment for kids was now an even lower-brow source of mindless entertainment for adults only. It’s insane to think about when accustomed to today’s product, let alone when accustomed to what it was before. One minute wrestlers are telling people to “say their prayers and take their vitamins,” next minute, they’re flipping people off and telling them to “suck it.”

They decided to keep some tropes but with a few adjustments to the formula. Were gimmicks still a thing? Occupational gimmicks, such as policemen, hockey players, repo men, and mounties?

Oh, they had occupations, alright.

Ahem:

THE DECLINE OF PRO WRESTLING.

The generally accepted conjecture on the Internet is that things began to turn to shit in 2001 when WCW went out of business, and WWE no longer had well-funded competition breathing up their arses every Monday. There really wasn’t much incentive to compete, or even give a shit, for that matter. Iron sharpens iron. And, in the end, they became complacent.

They only bothered putting out an innovative and edgy product to compete with WCW. Consequently, the gritty, adult-oriented product of yore was jettisoned for a more kid-friendly and, more importantly, advertiser-friendly product. It’s been shithouse ever since (or, at least, up until recently), and yet WWE would continue to make record profits hand over fist, supposedly thanks to their lucrative (and sometimes morally questionable) business partnerships. Which only served to incentivize more mediocrity. The suits were happy, so why change?

And now, you had two options: either sit there, shut up and passively accept whatever bullshit content WWE felt like broadcasting that night, or fuck off.

So, naturally, my generation would fuck off in droves, and then the geeks (no offence) who like this shit for whatever reason moved in. They essentially underwent an audience transplant. The kids who were the main target audience would grow up with this as the standard; their kids would inherit it as theirs, and we became like the ancient Ubaid people. A forgotten civilization.

THE INVASION OF THE NERDS.

Wrestling, unsurprisingly, has one of the most toxic fandoms around. If not the most. Wrestling marks can be some of the biggest knobs on the planet.

Fans have never recoiled from voicing their displeasure. However, the explosion of the Internet and instant access to validation of opinion have contributed significantly to wrestling’s decline. Few things sully the experience than when a bunch of marks in the audience try to get themselves over and book the shows themselves from the stands.

And, it’s all based upon their personal opinion on who should get pushed and who shouldn’t. We’ve always had such opinions, but it used to be that fans would generally object to things such as a lack of work rate, poor presentation, or if their booking was to the detriment of the show as a whole. Nowadays, well-booked wrestlers with perfectly good work rate are being booed out of the building because… reasons? With no consideration for the fact that some of us, despite their presentation, might actually like to see them wrestle. I’m convinced they’re just booing people at random to keep everyone on their toes and show everyone how “smart” they think they are.

Seeing the occasional fan revolt used to be a guilty pleasure, but man, it got old quick. When fans become “featured performers,” wrestling starts to resemble less of a sport and more interactive theatre, and kills the illusion. You don’t see NFL players checking with the fans first before kicking a fuckin’ field goal.

Listen, “Meltzer,” fans have a right to demand better programming if it’s gotten really bad, but that doesn’t give you the right to hijack the show and try to take over the entire creative direction of the promotion. Your job as an attendee is to sit there and either boo or cheer, but at the end of the day, to watch, and that’s it. So can the histrionics, and let everyone else enjoy the show.

Not only that, but as a result, a stubborn and pernicious misconception about wrestling and its fan base has arisen post-2001. Namely that:

It’s not entirely undeserved. If you look at wrestling crowds since 2001, they tend to resemble a Where’s Wally picture in reverse (or Waldo, if you’re in the United States).

For nerds? The hell it is. At least, that’s not how it used to be. Wrestling isn’t for nerds, so much so that WWE pivoted to booking shows that appeal to a younger and nerdier audience. There’s always been a contingent of nerds, but back in the day, wrestling was not archetypical of nerds, more so felons, frat bros, bikers, rednecks and juvenile delinquents. These were obviously just stereotypes, especially during the Monday Night War, when everybody watched wrestling. And I mean everybody.

I remember watching the home shopping channel (watching is a strong word), and the host randomly throwing up “nWo 4 life” mid-broadcast while hawking his shitty Topaz earrings or whatever it was. I’m prepared to scour the Earth for that clip. Everyone at school talked about wrestling like they would cricket or rugby league. It was the same in the US with the NFL and baseball, soccer in the UK, hockey in Canada, and so on. No one cared that it was rigged because we only cared that it was entertaining and compelling and didn’t really give a shit that it was predetermined. No one had to explain shit to anyone. We were already on the same page.

Matthew McConaughey is a wrestling fan. Also, Jon Stewart, Snoop Dogg, Joe Manganiello, Shaq, and Maria Menounos. And, quite famously, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sly Stallone, Mike Tyson, and Muhammad Ali. The latter modelled his persona after wrestler Gorgeous George, by the way. McConaughey’s fandom alone is permission enough for me.

How many times do you see NFL, NBA, MLB players, and so forth showing up at WWE and AEW events? Only every fucking Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

As a matter of fact, to prove my point, here’s a lesson in wrestling history for which there will be a quiz:

THE TERRITORIES.

Back in the day, before the WWF’s massive national expansion back in the 1980s, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) was a professional wrestling governing body/league of independent wrestling circuits known as “territories” that covered and controlled a certain geographic location.

The territories were all independent promotions under the umbrella of the NWA, loosely affiliated with each other through their membership, and would cross-promote their wrestlers or championships. Some of these promotions included Mid-South Wrestling, Stampede Wrestling, and even World Championship Wrestling, which later seceded. After the WWF expanded nationally, the influence of the NWA waned, and the WWF model of one national wrestling promotion became the mainstream concept of promoting wrestling.

The territories, their wrestlers, and their history remain highly respected in the sport today. You can watch them on the WWE Network right now, although they’re pretty niche to be accessible to non-fans. In fact, you’re probably a massive wrestling hipster if you watch the territories. They’re the wrestling equivalent of vinyl.

So, here’s the quiz:

Which of the following names currently owns the National Wrestling Alliance? (Hint: I’ve thrown in a few far-fetched names as red herrings.)

Spoiler below the quiz.

 

#1. Who owns the National Wrestling Alliance?

The Rock

John Cena

Ted Turner

Vince McMahon

Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins

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Finish

Results

Yep! You read that right.

He doesn’t just sit on his arse and collect a paycheck, either; he fuckin’ works there.

The guy responsible for Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and the voice of one of the coolest bands of one of the coolest generations was enough of a “nerd” to purchase the governing body of the old territory system. Real talk. He was the president of TNA wrestling at one point, too.

Elvis was a wrestling fan. So were The Beatles, Jimmy Carter, Robert Plant, Teddy Roosevelt, Jackie Gleason, Debbie Harry, Bob Dylan, and others.

Wrestling is for nerds? Fuck off.

IT’S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMN IT.

You may be asking if it’s been that shit for that long, why care? Well, it’s pretty much been my chosen sport since 1997. And, no, I will not put the word “sport” in quotation marks like every other smug dickhead (except then). I reconcile my cognitive dissonance regarding that point by looking at wrestling as a once conventional sport that bucked the trend and shifted to a pure exhibition format to maximize the entertainment potential, but a sport nonetheless in which we, as a fan base, willingly and knowingly in useful denial, collectively agree to turn a blind eye to the blatant match-fixing because the shits and giggles were more important.

The entertainment advantage of an exhibition focus gave rise to what is, in my opinion, a “non-competitive sport.” The only one like it. I believe “cope” is what the young people would say to that, but I couldn’t give a rat’s ass. If pre-determination adds more entertainment to what was already just a form of entertainment, does it matter if it has the same competitive end as other sports in order to qualify as one?

To most people, yes. I suppose.  

Define “sport,” then. A Google search reveals no overwhelming consensus on its dictionary definition. Some definitions require a competitive component, and some don’t. So, as far as I’m concerned, it remains a matter of opinion. For example, Dictionary.com defines “sport” as the following:

sport

noun UK/spɔːt/US/spɔːrt/

1. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as (sic) racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.

If you look at sports through a purely competitive and results-based lens, wrestling is probably not for you. But, if two-thirds of the point of it all is to entertain and demonstrate athletic prowess, wrestling fulfils two out of three criteria. If you want to be entertained by athletics, there’s no purer form than wrestling – that’s what they’re trying to do. Minimize the uncertainty inherent in competitive athletics so that it entertains, come hell or high water.

“Cope?” More like “based.”

Any wrestling fans reading this can feel free to skip the next few paragraphs because, for us, this particular disquisition has become mind-numbingly routine and monotonous already. But, for the benefit of anyone who still thinks it’s “fake shit,” it’s way more complicated than that. Yeah, it’s predetermined with a script and a focus on minimizing injury. But contrary to popular belief, there’s not all that much in the way of actual choreography, sometimes just a pow-wow before the match between competitors and/or staff, usually before a big event with a lot riding on it, and sometimes none at all, with the whole match being improvised in real-time from start to finish. And it’s not uncommon for the match to turn into a shoot. That is to say, a real fight.

The amount of athleticism required to do this is no joke, far above what most other sports demand. Sometimes even world champions and Hall Of Fame athletes from other sports get into the ring and shit the bed.

And it’s not as if no one’s getting hurt. They do nothing but get hurt. That mat isn’t a trampoline, and the moves do inflict pain. Maybe some amount of damage if they’re lucky, potentially career-threatening, or even life-threatening injury if not. Talk show host Richard Belzer got injured by a basic front chin lock during a casual demonstration from Hulk Hogan. And injuries are inevitable. Period.

Forget front chin locks. If anything, its scripted nature allows competitors to hurt each other with some serious panache:

Those thumbtacks aren’t gimmicked, by the way (altered to minimize damage, or “nerfed” in gamerspeak). Those are real thumbtacks you can see sticking out of his back. What, you think they sticky-taped the shits one by one before the match? That spot wasn’t a one-and-done either; it’s an oldie but a goodie.

The best form of wrestling, in my opinion, and that of many others, is the technical wrestling employed by guys like Dean Malenko, Bryan Danielson, and Bret “The Hitman” Hart, a realistic, cerebral style that consists heavily of complex amateur wrestling holds. The technical wrestlers are no joke. Watch the documentary film Hitman Hart: Wrestling With Shadows. There’s a scene in the film where some smart-arse shows up at the famed wrestling school known as “The Dungeon,” where the world’s greatest technical wrestlers were trained, thinking he’s about to embarrass elderly trainer Stu Hart in a shoot fight, only for the old timer to make an absolute pretzel out of him. Brilliant.

Therefore, the first criterion is satisfied. And comprehensively so. And, according to the above definition, as mentioned, the second criterion is optional.

As for conventional sports, I’m sorry, but I’m not one of these people that can give that much of a shit about people playing with a ball. Yeah, it is entertaining, but I cannot for the life of me give this much of a shit:

For me, sport is good for a bit of mindless entertainment, but nothing I get too psyched about. Wrestling being the only exception and the only sport I’m really all that knowledgeable about. And can you blame me? Where else are you going to see this type of shit? The NFL? The NBA? Movies? Definitely not live and in person. Sure, there are suplexes and power bombs in the UFC. But where the fuck are you going to see a jackknife powerbomb? Let alone somebody’s ninety-year-old Nana being powerbombed through a table off of a stage?

Do they have ladder matches in the UFC? And where else are you going to see a dude drive a Zamboni into the ring so he can beat the shit out of his employer in front of a worldwide television audience and then actually keeps his job, all so he can go to work next week and beat his ass again?

Where else are you going to see a guy pour concrete into his boss’s car?

I don’t recall ever seeing anyone resolve disputes like this on Grey’s Anatomy:

Where can you see any of this shit, period? It just doesn’t happen anywhere else. When was the last time you told someone to “suck it”, and it ended well? Literally, nothing from wrestling will fly in real life. Trust me, I know.

I can’t defend it one hundred per cent; it really was a bad influence in my day, if I’m being honest. Do you know how much of a contribution wrestling made towards detention rates in the nineties from impressionable idiots like me desperately trying to get wrestling shit to work IRL? And I’m not even talking about Tombstone piledrivers or chair shots.

If we had only managed to get iPods a few years earlier, we could have walked into class with our own entrance music. Technically feasible, but we would have made complete dicks of ourselves. It just wasn’t going to work out.

So, once again, wrestling maintains its monopoly on patented innovations in awesomeness, and it’s business as usual for the natural order. You wouldn’t even be able to cut a promo on someone without them interrupting you, walking away, or just straight-up smacking you in the mouth. Or even develop your own catchphrase without looking like an absolute knob. The Rock can come up with any damn catchphrase he wants and no one says shit. Again, if you’re in the market for this type of thing, you can only get it in wrestling. It’s that simple.

A MATTER OF CRUST.

Switching gears now. There was a bit of a shit-storm (what else is new) a while ago when The Undertaker said the following during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience:

OK. Where’s the lie, though? People were having kittens over this statement as if what he said had no merit whatsoever. It’s fine if you don’t like what he said or approve of such a persona, but that has no bearing on the accuracy of his statement. Those dudes were crusty as fuck.

Wrestlers are legit badasses, no matter what era. Few of us can ever hope to be as tough. Night in and night out, they wreck their bodies, put themselves through tables, take chair shots, and do the same high-risk spots as always. The athleticism required to be a professional wrestler cannot be summoned by just anybody. We’re spoilt for talent, no doubt. But that’s obviously not what he’s talking about here. Quite clearly, the salient issue up for debate here pertains specifically to the crust aspect.

Look at his contemporaries: Stone Cold Steve Austin, Terry Funk, Dan Severn, Vader, The Road Warriors, Haku, Ron Simmons, Bradshaw, Tazz, Ahmed Johnson, Hardcore Holly, Big Boss Man, Barry Windham, Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, and so forth. Were they not crustier than a steak and kidney pie? I mean, you do have eyes, don’t you?

Jimmy Jack Funk would literally eat glass. In his spare time, by the way. These guys were the closest thing we had to pirates and Wild West outlaws. That was their appeal, and I would rather be kicked to death behind a Denny’s than live in a world of politically correct pirates and outlaws. If anyone is exempt from the standards of our time, it’s them. They’re “essential workers.” And if ass-kicking isn’t an essential service, I don’t know what is.

Back in my day, the word “wrestler” was synonymous with “hardarse.” Trust me, I was there. They were salty, hard-living, bedraggled, whiskey-drinking, baked bean-eating roughnuts. If you were to put any contemporary wrestler in a shoot fight with Curly from City Slickers, the former would most likely put the latter on his arse, but you’d have to be blind not to see that one of these dudes is quite clearly crustier than the other.

I’m not saying that Curly should be the standard upon which wrestlers and the general public should model themselves. Do you think I want to have to eat glass? But someone has to do it. And, back then, you could sleep easy at night, safe in the knowledge that someone was out there munching glass, so you didn’t have to. And now people are actually bitching? For what?

From a parasocial perspective, if the biggest, crustiest badass in the county stole your lunch money, who better than the biggest and crustiest badass in the world to retrieve it for you? And if they just happened to have a big-ass Crocodile Dundee knife on them, in case the pump-handle slam didn’t connect, the whole thing would be resolved amicably before a pump-handle slam even entered the discussion.

There you go. A non-violent solution. What’s more progressive than that? Hence the appeal. And you can pry that opinion from my cold, dead hands.

Additionally, some people took offence at what Taker said about video games. Now, I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but what you heard is not necessarily what I heard. Sure, he could have been just shitting on video games, and gamers, but it sounded more to me like an illustrative example of something that would epitomize the distinction between the Wild West era and today. I mean, seriously, you mean to tell me that if PS5s were a thing back then, there would be a snowball’s chance in hell that you’d ever walk backstage and find Dave Schultz, Harley Race, Stan Hansen, and Dr Death Steve Williams playing Baldur’s Gate 3?

And even if he was, who gives a shit? They’re for bell-ends.

IN CLOSING.

The death of kayfabe, the proliferation of the Internet, the dilution of the product, scripted promos, less of a sports-like presentation, changing attitudes and too much bullshit interaction from the fans had turned wrestling into something resembling a pantomime.

When people who don’t understand wrestling try to explain wrestling to other people who don’t understand wrestling, their attempt at a steel-man argument is to characterize it as a “soap opera” or a “morality play.”

It’s a bit reductive, considering some of the most compelling storytelling takes place during the match, is entirely non-verbal, and has fuck-all to do with morality or conventional soap opera tropes and everything to do with complex ring psychology.

Yeah, it’s all subjective, and, at the end of the day, it’s just my opinion. Everything in life is a continuation of what preceded it; the same goes for wrestling. Everything they love about the business evolved from what my generation witnessed in real time. Nothing compares to the experience of being there right when it was fresh and innovative. Re-runs on the WWE Network won’t do it justice, especially when you’re desensitized to it after years of watching a product that’s already heavily informed by it.

We were there. And that’s the blessing and the curse of my generation. Nothing can live up to that. Everything today suffers by comparison. It’s no one’s fault. Nothing short of a Shakespearean level of creativity could possibly come up with anything original enough to revolutionize the business in such a way, especially in this day and age. But I won’t go so far as to say that it’s impossible.

If you can, I would recommend watching WrestleMania XL on Netflix, preferably on a 4K television or better, crank the sound system and join the damned. But if wrestling has still yet to be vindicated by my previous points, I present the following clip for your consideration:

I’ll just leave it at that.

Update: This article was written a while ago and, apparently, WWE is shit again. I never did get around to watching regularly.

G. Billington Evans is a satirical writer, visual artist, and owner of THEARTOFGEVANS.COM.