10 Wrestling Clichés You Can't Ignore

6. The Invisible Camera...

Corey Graves Michael Cole
AEW

...and what it's done to wrestling in general.

There was something amazingly lurid about WWE's first uses of the backstage area in the mid-1990s. Typically, the shots felt more like found footage, or wrestlers (notably Diesel and later Sid in 1996) aggressively dragged camera operators backstage. But the more it was normalised, the less the company tried to explain how or why any of us were seeing what we were seeing.

25 years later and it's become a rule of the universe that every hall and corridor is perfectly lit and filmed at all times. That level of hoop-jumping is f*cking sh*t of course, but that's often their opinion of all of us too.

AEW created a unique problem for themselves in so stridently pitching against the concept on launch. One of the many galvanising oppositions to how WWE do business on-screen, the promotion promised not to fall into the trap. They've just about managed it, but to such an extent that the tip-toeing around its occasional convenience is almost as annoying. Or at very least attention-drawing.

Is there a way to defeat this accepted paradox?

TNA once went inside the head of Jeff Hardy, but imagine extending that out to the rest of wrestling. Their social medias are often more than enough of that, maybe well-lit stilted dialogue isn't so bad.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett