10 Reasons Why Old School Fans Struggle With Modern WWE
INT. WRESTLING RING - NIGHT. WRESTLER A enters. He is interrupted by AUTHORITY FIGURE X.
Scott Steiner's promos in WCW's death throes were a thing of wonder. They were absolutely inimitable. They weren't scripted because only he could make them up.
He pulled apart the company's carcinogenic power players apart at the seams, banging on about Ric Flair's crooked yellow teeth, labelling him and Hulk Hogan "old b*stards". He turned the airwaves blue on the regular. He alluded to all manner of sexual acts and exploits. Bluntly, he didn't give a f*ck, and sadly, we'll never see his like in modern WWE. He couldn't threaten to "put a fist up" Stephanie McMahon. He'd have to be content with standing idly by as she stared at him with pure contempt.
Those promos have been preserved by a true gentlemen of a YouTube pirate, along with bucket loads more of wrestling's unrecoverable broken ground. Steiner's words were received with deafening approval - but so many of modern WWE bouts, with the obvious exception of major pay-per-view matches, might as well be performed in a mausoleum. The silence is deathly.
The reasons for that are numerous - and fans of a certain age will be more than happy to divulge them...
10. Scripted Promos
At King Of The Ring 1996, Stone Cold Steve Austin was coronated as the next major wrestling star in waiting.
He defeated Jake Roberts in a match which wasn't great, but it didn't have to be. It existed to put Austin over as a bad-a** - and he put himself over as a star in the incendiary aftermath. Grabbing the microphone, he delivered one of the great unscripted promos in history. It's sad that the demarcation even exists.
“The first thing I want to be done is to get that piece of cr*p out of my ring," Austin began. "Don’t just get him out of the ring - get him out of the WWF because I’ve proved, son, without a shadow of a doubt, you ain’t got what it takes anymore. You sit there and you thump your bible and you say your prayers, and it didn’t get you anywhere. Talk about your psalms, talk about John 3:16 - Austin 3:16 says “I just whipped your ass!”
The whole thing ran under two minutes. Austin didn't need fifteen minutes at the start of RAW, penned by a sophomoric writer, to get himself over. If anybody does, questions should get asked. Today, those writers script promos to the letter. The best talker in WWE today is Paul Heyman. He is entrusted to write his own stuff. Prior to that, it was CM Punk. He was entrusted to write his own stuff.
Why can't WWE spot the pattern?