Todays wrestling fans (and an increasing number of wrestlers) simply do not respect the wrestlers that came before them and paved the way for the business to evolve into what it is now. This makes no sense. In football (or soccer to our American readers), even casual fans can name legends like Bobby Charlton, Johan Cruyff, Pele and George Best. In baseball, even we Brits know about Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. In boxing the list is even longer... Professional wrestlers simply arent remembered in the same way. This is not because wrestling is less popular than football, baseball or boxing. In fact, wrestling has been vastly more popular than all of those sports at certain points in its history. It appears to be because wrestling fans simply dont know (or dont want to know) the history behind their own sport. Answer these questions (and if you cant, look them up): When did the wrestling business become a work? Why is WWE the biggest wrestling company in the world (and when did this state of affairs come about)? Who was the first ever wrestling World Champion? Who were the Gold Dust Trio and why were they so important? If you know the answers, good for you (and no, they arent needed in the comments section unless you really fancy showing off, that is). If you dont, dont be ashamed. Just understand that there is a lot more to learn about professional wrestling than you thought there was. It isnt your fault; it is the wrestling industrys fault. WWE constantly sells us an obfuscated, heavily sanitised version of wrestlings history, one where Bruno Sammartino was the biggest draw ever and where John Cena is the greatest wrestler of all time. Ask a few questions of this ludicrous hagiography and youll soon find that WWEs account of its own history and that of wrestling in general quickly falls to pieces. As wrestling fans, it is important for us to know where our chosen sport came from, as well as how it evolved into what it is today and who made the biggest contributions to it. A massive problem that todays fans have is that they lack knowledge of wrestling as an overall industry, an industry with over a hundred years of history to appreciate and enjoy. As the old adage goes, you dont truly know where youre going until you know where youve been... ...And thats it, a roundup of the 10 Most Harmful Trends in Pro Wrestling Today. Hope you liked it. Now, let the hatred commence...
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
