10 Wrestling Fan Complaints That Absolutely Suck
4. Bigger Is Better
Kazushi Sakuraba is a slender, short man with little in the way of telegenic muscle definition, and he would kick the absolute sh*t out of virtually every professional wrestler held aloft as the ideal image by fans warped by Vince McMahon's famed airport test.
Tall and muscled doesn't necessarily equate to legitimate toughness. Beyond perhaps his signature and finish, King Corbin's stuff never looks particularly painful. Nobody has truly winced throughout a King Corbin match, unless that third traumatic chin lock counts. Being physically imposing counts for bupkis without the all-important aura. Heidenreich was an absolute unit whose work looked clumsy and ineffective. Pro wrestling history is littered with inadvertently gentle giants who never drew a dime. Few visuals in pro wrestling match the sight of a brick sh*thouse killer launching some hapless prick into orbit, but a star is a star is a star, and the paradigm has shifted. MMA's biggest ever drawing card wasn't a heavyweight.
Fans no longer value the special attraction because it's a substance business in 2020. When people mourn the lack of big men in modern wrestling, they're probably just carving yet another stick with which to beat Dave Meltzer, because he likes the Young Bucks, and Dave Meltzer Derangement Syndrome is exhausting.
On the subject of which...