Professional Wrestling has always had something unique. These athletic, powerful, confident machines coming out with their themed music filling the arena as they would walk purposefully towards the ring with the goal of defeating their opponent and often rival. The atmosphere would be as good as anything. The product of wrestling has always been something I have found as a “must-buy”. There have been many eras of wrestling and a question I hear time and time again which sparks debate is if the wrestling today is on the right path given the era we are in.
Wrestling, and in particular the WWE has always had its ups and downs as a product or business of this nature will have, often given the talent available. In the mid 90’s, when I was growing up, I found that wrestling started to hit some real highs as in that time, many showstopping superstars emerged. You had variety of characters and wrestling styles. The likes of the technical tactician, Bret Hart, the raw power and run you over mentality of Diesel, and the high flying breakneck pace of Shawn Michaels, all came to the top of Sports Entertainment. Wherever you looked there seemed to be genuine top superstars. The list goes on. Razor Ramon, Vader, Mankind, Steve Austin, Sid, Owen Hart, and the Undertaker come to mind as a few of the other stars who were showing off their quality in the ring. The Monday Night Wars continued to intensify the action, as there was a fierce corporate battle between WWE and WCW.
We are now in 2014, and with WWE in the “PG-ERA”, are we on the right track? The “attitude era” was groundbreaking in the way of ratings and entertainment. The wrestling was off the charts in the way of risk taking. Who can forget the King of the Ring 1998 match between Mankind and The Undertaker and the punishment Mankind took!
The first thing required for WWE to have in order to be successful is quality superstars. Have they got the talent? Absolutely.
Cesaro is someone I have watched regularly and he continues to impress. As far as pure wrestling skills goes, he is probably the best wrestler in the company. I feel that he has had not have had a good enough push as yet, which the WWE must rectify now! Watch the NXT match between him and Sami Zayn and the evidence of his natural ability is more than apparent. He also has the ability to make his opponent look good which adds to the spectacle of the match. A future champion!
Another future champion must surely be Bray Wyatt. This crazed maniac of a character delivers exactly whats asked of pro wrestling. He is a good worker in the ring and improving. His finishing move “Sister Abigail” gets bums off seats and creates the drama and atmosphere like the great finishing moves have done before. His promos are money, they tell the story of Wyatt to a tee. His and the Wyatt families rivalries in 2014 were superb. He started as a heel, but now id say its 50/50 as far as heel and face go because of this most interesting psychological character. The mad laugh and riddling, often puzzling, promos backed up by some big victories makes him a certain champion down the road. Outside the ring, Ive heard him to be a very hard worker at all the facets needed in wrestling which makes me believe hes going to get better.
With the likes of former Shield members, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins, WWE has another 3 very promising stars with good in ring ability as well as great characters. Id go so far as to say currently the crop of wrestlers in the WWE are the best for some time.
With all the great things going on, there are still things that need to be addressed. For one, I am not a fan of bringing guys back if they are not at the same level as before. The Rock vs Cena at Wrestlemania 28 i am afraid was one the poorest matches you will find. Then they had another match the following year. How about giving the main event to guys who are in shape now? And putting in all the work every day on shows all over the place. If The Rock had been up to his old level, it would be understandable, but he clearly was not.
I think the John Cena character needs some major changes as I find it as stale as an old piece of toast. Lately Ive also heard a lot of “Cena Sucks” chants around which leads me to believe a lot of people agree with me.
I think the titles need to placed more carefully. If you go back some time, you would find a superstar going from maybe a tag champion to IC champion, then World champion. Ive seen some instances where the order of championships is bizarre. You win the World title, then 2 years later you are trying to win the US championship. To me that does not make a shred of sense. Can you imagine Hulk Hogan going from WWE champion to competing for the US championship? Nope.
The WWE most importantly must give the ball to the next generation of talent, rather than to rerun matches the fans are sick. A good example is the Cena/Orton match. Please not again! Give a push to Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Bray Wyatt, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, as well some other bright stars such as Luke Harper, Erik Rowan, and Wade Barrett. Get Brock Lesnar competing more often too please.
I firmly believe the WWE has everything setup to have a great next few years, but as with any business, it depends on the managements stance on certain things. Lets hope they follow the buzzards and listen to the fans.
