Wednesdaymania 6

This week, we’re addressing why I still watch WWE. It’s not for the storylines, because they suck. It’s not for the Pay-Per-Views, because the last few of those have sucked too. It’s not for brand loyalty, because that’s stupid.

It’s because their Network still remembers how wrestling used to be and because their minor shows are still good.

Modern WWE is basically garbage. They have never had so much amazing talent on their roster, true, but they’ve also never been more at a loss for what to do with them. And they wanted Kane to be a deranged dentist called Isaac Yankem.

Isaac.

Yankem.

A dentist who wrestled.

Vince McMahon has terrible ideas sometimes.

Shockingly, even though the characters and capabilities of the modern crop of wrestlers is unparalleled, the shows are still dragging behemoths with no heat, no interest, and no fun.

And they currently have some of the best guys! They have Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Asuka, the New Day (each member being an amazing wrestler or at least an amazing personality), Nikki Cross, Velveteen Dream, and ADAM COLE BAY-BAY.

They don't know how to use him - it's all nutshots now.

He may be a flat-earther, but he's a fantastic wrestler.

She's a demon in the ring, but they're having her lose to terrible wrestlers...

Xavier Woods, Big E Langston, and Kofi Kingston are comedy gods.

She is a wrathful badger and will eat your face.

I've never seen someone take to the ring like Velveteen. It's natural for him.

If you want to see him before he went to WWE, check out Anthony Bourdain's episode of Parts Unknown in Pittsburgh. Bonus Stewart O'Nan action (author).

They just have no goddamn clue how to write a wrestling show anymore, it seems. Unless it’s their hilarious Southpaw shows. Those are a true riot and a thousand times more interesting than listening to a bunch of bored, sweaty, poorly-contracted wrestlers drone on and on into microphones that don’t belong in the ring.

Nothing connects. Nothing makes sense. Nothing holds my interest.

Where are the long-term feuds that stay hot even if someone’s injured and can’t wrestle? Where are the ridiculously-themed Pay-Per-Views? I want my Bash at the Beach and Halloween Havoc, please! Where are the personalities? Where is the individuality? What happened to that Women’s Revolution?

I can't remember which year it was, but there was one Bash that had a camera from a crab's point of view...

HALLOWEEN IS BEST HOLIDAY.

WHY ARE THE WEEKLY SHOWS THE SAME LENGTH AS THE PAY-PER-VIEWS?!

There are no good answers, unfortunately.

But if you want to experience the wrestling of yesteryear (the good, the bad, and the ugly as sin, seriously what are you WEARING?!), then WWE has that, at least, covered.

Giant Gonzalez

The WWE Network will let you watch modern RAW and Smackdown, but it also has a plethora of other shows to cozy up to – Mid-South, Mid-Atlantic, WCW, WCCW, ECW, whatever your pleasure, they likely have it! They even have some shows that took place in Japan! If you’re looking for that time that the Shockmaster flopped through a wall, or the time that Dusty Rhodes got his arm wailed on with a baseball bat while screaming “MAKE IT GOOD”, the WWE Network has you covered.

This isn’t me advertising the Network. I’m not being paid (not that I’d complain…). I just legitimately enjoy being able to plunk myself down in front of the TV, crank up the Roku, and throw up a silly episode of a long-dead promotion’s weekly television.

One of these days, I’m going to have to talk about the Territory days, and how Vince McMahon destroyed wrestling-as-it-was and created wrestling-as-it-is.

Today is not that day.

Mostly because I wrote the bulk of this at 1AM and I need sleep.

But no sleep yet – I haven’t justified my continual watching of WWE shows.

It’s mostly just 205 Live and NXT right now, for modern WWE. Actually, that’s all we’ve been watching… Because that’s the only kind of current wrestling they offer which I can stand.

Characters like the Velveteen Dream (who is a powerhouse in the ring, despite having only recently come into the business and being all of 22 years old,) keep me interested in the developmental “territory” of NXT, where new wrestlers (most of whom have been poached from other, more entertaining, yet less financially alluring, companies like NJPW or AAA or Lucha Underground).

NXT offers a great variety of characters – brawlers, thinkers, high-fliers, veterans, newcomers, and everything in between. There are people who can tie other people into knots, people who can do flips til the cows come home, and people who can break your face and keep breaking you into tinier and tinier pieces until your shoulders are all that remain so they can pin you. The backstage vignettes are still the worst part of the show, sometimes, but they’re less consistently awful than those on either main shows, and most of the wrestlers actually know how to run their mouths in a way that’s both entertaining and aggressive. For a while, they also had Mauro Ranallo as their announcer, which is always a treat.

A truly gifted announcer and a pretty cool dude.

Not everyone from NXT is great. I doubt I’ll ever be as big on Lars Sullivan as the people running the show seem to be…

The man is an absolute Ken doll. Seriously, even his movements are stiff...

As for 205 Live, it’s my go-to for fantastic work-rate on almost every level. I don’t know if I’ve seen a bad match yet. It’s got the flippy-doos, the twisty-ouches, it’s got everything you’d want in a fast-paced match. Except for the time to shine. Seriously – no sooner do you get into the groove of a card, then it ends. It’s ridiculous. We have to slog through 3 hours of a show that sucks big time (RAW), but a great offering of wrestling sans steroidal behemoths only gets 30-60 minutes?! Stupid.

205 Live has some great talent. No joke. They’ve got guys like Akira Tozawa, who screams his way through matches, Gentleman Jack Gallagher (who should watch out with that umbrella, since it seems kind of like gimmick-infringement vs Marty Scurll), Lince Dorado and Lio Rush, Noam Dar… it’s a smorgasbord of fantastic wrestlers who really know their stuff. Sadly, 205 Live is currently a men-only show (since intergender matches are frowned on in the WWE), but one day, they may have their own women’s weight-based divisions.

Seriously. Why is this not a thing? Because women are sensitive about their weights? Why does the weight of your muscles and bones have to be a bad thing?

But I digress.

I still watch WWE because they still have something to offer – however strangely-scripted and long-winded it can be. They don’t have much (comparatively), but there’s just enough for me to be interested.

I can’t wait to see Velveteen Dream and Ricochet tear it up some more.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC