10 Modern Wrestling Moments That Gave You Chills
Dust in your eye.
Emotion is lacking in the modern era of pro wrestling.
WWE's artificial, slick production values ooze over freedom of expression. The fitful narrative doesn't reward the investment and catharsis of drama; Vince McMahon punishes it, yielding either memes, fury, or disenchantment. If anything, to invest in WWE in 2019, you must surgically remove all emotion from your core and marvel at the catastrophe through a distant, LOLWCW lens.
Even NXT, as incredible as the in-ring component is, operates on a soundbites/video package approach. It is as produced and as formulaic as the main roster is, only, those producers very much know what they are doing and do not, for example, banish half of the roster to catering, which at this point resembles Maggie Simpson and her baby pals trapped in the daycare centre. Only, the infants have more agency.
The modern Independent scene is almost post-everything - certainly post-earnest. Where Bryan Danielson and CM Punk once led it through a workrate revolution, Joey Ryan and Orange Cassidy are the new aloof, d*ck-grabbing kings.
Daniel Bryan's WrestleMania XXX triumph resonated so emphatically because it was a rare throwback to the days in which investment mattered. Through defiance or accident or something else, everything is starting to mean something again.
The paradigm has shifted.
10. A Solitary Note
Kazuchika Okada Vs. Kenny Omega IV, at NJPW Dominion 2018, was nothing less than the fight of the challenger's life, a fight he put over by entering a career-best performance: the best performance of his career, and the best of anyone's.
Virtually every second of this perfect presentation sprang goosebumps. Omega's fantastically corny pre-fight video; the twisting narrative, in which Omega fought through an injured rib that doubled as his undying will to win; the various callbacks to the in-ring arsenals of the friends who made him whole along the way; Okada's relentless escapology, which, informed by the groundwork of the trilogy, compelled Osaka to roar Omega to finally detonate the One-Winged Angel clean in the middle: this was pro wrestling, perfected, and perhaps even something better than that.
Omega's exhausted celebration, comprising the triumphant formation of the Golden Elite faction, was so powerful that nobody paid attention to the fallen IWGP Heavyweight Champion - until the closing shot of the show.
In the foreground, Okada's 1M yen note cast a shadow over everything. So much pathos rested in that single image; the end of the greatest title reign of all-time, how much the fans would miss it, and how almost insolent they were in clamouring for its end. An aching lament of something wonderful forever lost, this superb production touch subverted celebration into grief.
This was something better than wrestling, perfected. This was life and death.