10 Things Wrestling Needs To Ban RIGHT NOW
Wrestlers sometimes need to be saved from themselves...
It seems counterintuitive to ban most anything in pro wrestling.
Before AEW was created, when the WWE monopoly was at its most antagonistic, samey and clichéd, how many times did you complain that expression was the one thing that wrestling was missing on the big stage?
AEW was formed in no small part because Vince McMahon actively discouraged it. One of the most famous wrestling podcasts ever, the Emancipation of Jon Moxley on Talk Is Jericho, was a compelling must-listen rant on that exact subject. Mox used those frustrations and newfound creative freedom to, in AEW, become the best version of himself - and, one could argue, an all-time great.
It feels now that wrestling has reached the opposite end of that extreme, having succumbed to a lot in the way of excess. The grim byproduct of creative expression is that every cool thing feels like it's been done twice over, and the unscripted promo can sometimes feel like very personal venting as opposed to a wrestler using their own voice to advance a story.
Does wrestling in 2024 actually need some restrictions?!
A mix of the important stuff and the trivial bugbears follows...
10. Lack Of Transparency Surrounding Injuries
Using footbal as an example, injuries are disclosed to the media. More often than not, the exact nature and severity of the injury and the expected recovery time is stated.
A manager will at times play a shadowy game. A player might miraculously recover more quickly than anticipated; the idea is to lull the opposition coach into tactical errors by not building a strategy around a key player who, unbeknownst to them, is actually available to start. As a rule, however, even if the piss gets taken a bit, every injury is disclosed. 99.9% of the time, if a player is not available, you know exactly why that is.
Why can't wrestling do this?
Half the time, you might not know that a wrestler is injured at all. Neither AEW nor WWE publicise an injured list; this information is mostly, eventually, sounded out by reporters. The other half of the time, the details of the injury are kept secret. Are the two majors afraid that this indicts them and their safety record?
What's the deal?
This lack of transparency, which has no actual benefit, just fuels the rumour mill. If a wrestler is out, and you've no idea why, it is very easy to conclude that something is amiss. Conclusions are jumped towards. Are they unhappy? In the doghouse?
And if that isn't fair, if a wrestler is out of sight, even if no unseemly rumours arise, at a minimum, you are left to think that the promoter has lost interest - which in turn lowers your investment in the character.
Just make this information public.