10 Problems EVERY Wrestling Company Has In Common
7. Real, Honest To Goodness Heat
The very psyche of the general public means that the real, authentic heat of pro wrestling no longer exists.
We can play along - and a performer like MJF was almost reviled ahead of Revolution, as was KENTA at the apex of last year's incredible NJPW G1 Climax Finals angle - but the collective disposition makes it virtually impossible. Indeed, there's a certain paradoxical core issue at play: even when an angle generates something approaching the old sensation of bloodthirsty vengeance, we, long past the looking glass, know it to be of exceptional craft. Everything we should earnestly hate commands a respect because engineering that hatred is so impossible as to be deeply impressive.
Nothing's shocking - we're too numb to real horrors to entertain the idea that fiction is anything less than what it is - and this extends well beyond our cultural corner. Cardi B's 'WAP' generated mild outrage, in its very graphic embrace of sexual freedom, but the controversy was quaint compared to the boogeymen that were Eminem and Marilyn Manson at the turn of the century.
Wrestling has struggled, and will continue to struggle irrespective of how good it is, because that which ultimately drives it has lost an all-important, unrecoverable feeling.